Where can I find my MarTech superhero?

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Identifying outstanding talent in the Marketing Technology(MarTech) space is one of the biggest challenges facing senior leadership. A lack of MarTech talent has been a well documented hurdle that companies need to overcome.

Finding people who will knock your socks off with MarTech knowledge either as specialists in a particular technology, or as MarTech generalists for leadership roles is incredibly difficult. The usual HR processes for finding talent are inadequate and inaccurate. Almost always you are speaking to people you have worked with before, to convince them to come join you.

You might ask how this is different than the challenges we have had for years with hiring talented individuals in digital. As I see it, the primary difference is the limited number of people with these skills in the marketplace. Think of how hard it is for you to find talented, digital people today. We are swamped by resumes of people who are not qualified or those who want to start to get into the digital space. Now take that number and reduce it substantially. This is what the search for marketing technologists looks like. Needles in barns of hay.

As I have said before, marketing technologists are hybrids between technology and business. Whether the definition of business is eCommerce, Digital, Marketing, Customer Service or any other area, these are people that understand why business goals are important as well as how technology operates and empowers business users to help drive success towards those goals. Trust me when I tell you these people are few and far between. While the ranks have been growing in the last 5 years, there are still too few candidates with these hybrid skills.

One solution to this problem would be to create a job repository that was just focused on the MarTech skill-set. However, I am yet to find job boards that focus on Marketing Technology as a focal area, as they currently do with areas like Sales, Call Center, Marketing etc…

Another solution would be to have more participation in MarTech forums around identifying and finding this talent in the open market. This would require open, enlightened leadership to allow their people to grow and flourish in the MarTech space, as an increase in the talent pool is a boon for us all. As you invest in the pool, this also gives you the ability to find others who are looking for a change, new opportunities for growth and so on.

You could also create programs that develop this talent internally in your company. Get the right internal employees to complete the right training program and ensure that they are developing the mindset as well as the skill-set to form the core of an outstanding MarTech organization. The work to build an in-house program that develops this skill set among qualified employees can be done by your organization as long as there is a leader willing to own it and work with your HR areas and executive team to build the capability to develop in house talent.

No matter which way you go about it, we will continue to see the demand for MarTech skills continue to exceed the supply. It becomes your job as a leader to create strategies around how to best solve for those problems in your organization.

Joseph Kurian
Former Head of Marketing Technology at Aetna, a $62B health insurance company. Currently the CEO of 249Labs, a Marketing Technology consulting start-up.

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