We personally found that design applicants were so diverse in their talents, that we felt we had to be ultra specific in what we were looking for. This is the best we came up with but I’m really curious to learn how other designers or managers go about it.
Our biggest fail was advertising for a “content producer.” We got a lot of video-first applicants, which was too specific for a broad-based B2B content agency.
If we’re hiring locally in our small town in Pennsylvania, we need to go a bit broader. If we’re going remotely, we need to be hyper-specific – that’s applicants from all across North America. (It would obviously be a little different if we were in NYC or SF.)
As far as my title, I’ve worked in Unbounce as:
- Manager, Editorial Services
- Director, Editorial Services
- VP, Innovation & Strategy
- Chief Strategy Officer
I think the more important thing is calling out the specific systems the applicant will be working in. If I need a WordPress guy or gal, they need WordPress experience, not “I dabbled in HTML for a while.” Same with Unbounce. There’s a level of filtering and self-selection that happens. If someone truly knows the system, they’ll be fine with applying. If they feel confident – truly confident – that their expertise translates, they’ll apply. If they get spooked by it, they might not (and not waste anyone’s time).
I always thought Demand Gen Architect or Conversion Architect would be a kickass title 😃
I’m a “Senior Data Strategist” but no one (not even my supervisor!) really knows what that means.
Basically, I run our CRO program, am the in-house GTM and GA expert, help folks understand data and form audience strategies, and just overall am a marketing strategist. So it’s like 80% marketing strategy, 20% data.
Long time no see, Colin! 👋 That’s a great call out to specify demand gen in the title. Just curious – any reason why you might use “architect” over “designer”?
We have a few of those hybrid roles at Unbounce, actually! For example, we have a Web Strategy and Optimization Manager.
It makes for interesting conversations when you start looking at creating career paths for people who specialize in both these areas, but it almost seems inevitable that once someone gets their hands dirty in CRO they become a little obsessed with the numbers and can more easily enter the world of data. Also, Karen I hope your supervisor isn’t reading these posts 😂
Or you get into CRO and realize you’d much rather continue doing marketing strategy instead of being in the weeds with tests all the time! It makes it really hard to get back out of that field once folks associate you with that role.
It’s playing off “campaign architecture” as a term I use quite often when creating marketing strategy. Similarly, a role can architect conversion both by testing and creating a strategy the entwines it into the overall campaign.
Plus I mean, it just sounds cool and sophisticated 😅
