How Can You Future-Proof Your Career? with Erica Seidel and Lisa Nirell

The Mindful Marketer

As of late July 2021, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported over 10.9 million job openings in the U.S.

Job abundance? Definitely.

Does that abundance correlate to high employee satisfaction and engagement?

Sadly not.

The Culture Works conducted a recent survey showing that 70% of organizations are currently making anxiety and well-being a top business priority.

If hiring were such a finely-tuned process, and we truly understood how to value our marketing teams, we wouldn’t witness this stress spike.

It’s time to revise and future-proof our hiring process for marketers and CMOs and create more mindful, engaged growth champions.

In Episode 45 of The Mindful Marketer Life Stream, Erica Seidel and I explore this topic in depth. She is the founder of The Connective Good, a B2B retained search firm based in Boston, MA.

Watch the LinkedIn Live replay now.

Whether you’re searching for a new role, or struggling to find great people, you’ll benefit from this conversation.

Watch the LinkedIn Live replay now.

Here are some questions we explored with our live audience:

✔️ Is Your Story Future-Proofed? Erica Seidel, Executive Recruiter and Founder of The Connective Good, described why it is very important to adapt quickly to changes in the job market. "It's important to think of a product-market fit for yourself and always reevaluate your value proposition for the market; for whatever job you're going for."

Start by writing and rehearsing your signature story with your peers. Does it resonate and inspire, or does it sound like a resume regurgitation?

Click here for the replay.

✔️ Is the VP of Marketing or CMO role facing an“existential crisis?” Some people believe that it is--including me. Just look at how many marketing leaders now own a portion of the revenue goal, yet spend none of their time actually interacting with customers. Or their over-dependency on outside agencies for key roles that they cannot fill. Raj Rajamannar, the President and CMO of Mastercard, reported in The Drum. We are witnessing boards of directors and CEOs stripping CMOs of their original roles, such as pricing strategy. He goes on to cite that 70% of CEOs surveyed do not believe their CMOs actually contribute to company growth!

✔️ How are you balancing “selling talent” with “evaluating talent?” Employers can't just assume they can swoop in, make the highest cash offer, and hire the best candidate with a tight talent market. Erica believes that “you need to balance evaluating talent and selling talent...make sure to craft the best candidate experience."

I have seen how larger organizations such as Kimberly-Clark and Amazon rely heavily on their marketing teams to optimize the candidate application experience, and tie their success directly to the healthy size and quality of their applicant pools. This is not HR’s sole job any longer.

✔️Are you capable of juggling two brands at once? The first is brand priority is making sure your company's brand is safe, powerful and compelling. You also need to carve out time and energy to cultivate your personal brand as a leader, both within and outside the organization. Great marketers know how to manage those parallel paths.

During our stream, we also heard from Tom Berray of Cabot Consultants . He offers four ways to future-proof your marketing career:

1. Develop and nurture personal and professional relationships.
2. Volunteer for boards and get actively involved and participate in those boards.
3. Join and participate in professional marketing communities (NOT networking groups. Those offer limited value for senior roles, and they are a dime a dozen).
4. Regularly and consistently experiment with new technologies.

Click here for the replay to learn more.

Thriving in ambiguity and uncertainty is the mark of a strong leader. That doesn’t mean you can leave your career to a few supportive inside sponsors, or rest on your educational laurels. There’s a new sheriff in town, and her name is Future Proof. These questions will arm you with some powerful career growth strategies.

Copyright 2021, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.

Lisa Nirell of EnergizeGrowth™ LLC helps courageous marketers and CEOs accelerate growth and get promoted faster. Download your Mindful Marketer learning bonuses at themindfulmarketer.com/bonus. You will also join the “know ahead” list for our upcoming Life Streams.

Erica Seidel established The Connective Good in 2011. Her philosophy is that recruiting needs to look less like procurement and more like one-to-one sales and marketing. Erica has placed marketing, marketing analytics, marketing technology, and customer success leaders for a range of companies, including Zipcar, BlueConic, Healthgrades, MarketShare, Datto, Allocadia, and FranConnect, to name a few.

Website: https://theconnectivegood.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericaseidel/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/erica_seidel

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Copyright 2021, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.