These are truly awful buzzwords to describe highly skilled resources.
As I scroll through Linked In, I see a lot of job postings that have headlines of "Seeking Growth Hacker," or "only Rock Stars need apply!" When did this become part of recruiting lexicon? I'm not a ninja or a rock star and I'm not even sure what "growth hacker" means (I do, but, it sounds ridiculous)!
You Don't Want A Rock Star
Why do you want a rock star on your team? Typically, rock stars are demanding, egotistical and hard to predict. Ozzy Osbourne is a rock star...and do I need to remind you what he did to that poor dove?
Rock stars kill team morale. No one wants to work with them. We're in an era where teamwork is highly valued; but you want to hire someone who prefers to shine his/her own star? Corporations are already littered with middle managers focused on their own fiefdom. A "rock star" is the exact opposite of what teams need today.
I get it. What the hiring manager is looking for is the skills of Tom Brady but the ego of the water boy. But the odds of finding that diamond is low; especially given the seven seconds most HR folks look at a resume.
You don't want a rock star. You want someone who is seeking purpose and Purpose. Someone who wants to be more than a cog in the machine and someone who finds the work your company does fulfilling. That person has intrinsic motivation to perform at a high level all the time. They'll become high performers with low egos.
What The ^&*! Is A Growth Hacker?
As a marketing person...I hate the phrase "growth hacker." Nails on a chalkboard. I don't even know what it means. It implies that there's a magic formula for growth and only these magicians, I mean, growth hackers, know what that formula is.
The counter to this argument is always "but, but, but....BIG DATA!" Sigh. Anyone who tells you that they fully understand "big data" is either a) lying to you or b) lying to themselves. Disagree? Here are some "big data" facts for you:
90% of the data that exists today was created in the last two years.
On WordPress alone, there are roughly 75 million blog posts published each month.
Google processes 100 billion searches per month
300 hours of YouTube videos are uploaded every minute.
But yet, "growth hackers" have a handle on "big data." By the way, my above examples ignore the other two "Vs" of big data (velocity and variety...hello, Internet of Things) and only looks at the third, Volume.
We are in the infancy of understanding Big Data. We are in the infancy of being able to pull in the sheer volume of data and have yet to figure out how to keep up with the velocity and endless variety of data. Am I suggesting that we abandon the use of data in marketing? Not at all. I am, however, suggesting we recognize the limitations of where we are today. And why "growth hacking" isn't the be-all/end-all that some make it out to be.
So, what is it you should be looking for in a marketing/demand generation person? A skilled marketer is someone that understands how to solve problems and build relationships. I know. It sounds too simplistic! How can we marketing people be taken seriously if we aren't talking about SQL, bots, AI, Machine Learning and Predictive Modeling?
We keep touting that people should be "data-driven" but our data sets are incomplete, out-dated and nascent. What we really need to be is "data-led, insight driven." What's the difference? Gather data. Crunch the numbers. Evaluate it. Yes, of course. But then apply critical thinking skills to the data to develop insights. That's where real value creation comes from within the marketing stack. Crunching ones and zeros isn't where value happens. It's knowing what that 1 and 0 are telling us and what we should do with it.
Stop looking for rock-stars and ninjas and growth hackers. Look for problem solvers that understand people and look for people who can build relationships; let them get back to basics. Build relationships. Solve problems. Create value. Rinse and repeat.
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