Before signing a search, a CMO should ask a recruiter two things first: what do you know about our product, and how well do you understand functional marketing roles? Those two answers tell you whether you are hiring a partner who can sell your role to the right people, or a firm that will match keywords on a resume. It also matters which recruiter you are asking. The firm your company already has an agreement with may be the right choice, or it may be a generalist that fills a marketing role now and then.
I sat in a national marketing department before I started recruiting. "What do you know about our product? How well do you understand functional roles?" are the questions I would want any CMO to put to any recruiter.
Should a CMO use the company's approved recruiting firm or a specialist marketing recruiter?
A CMO should use whichever firm can actually find and persuade the people the role needs, and for a specialized marketing or creative hire that is often a specialist rather than the firm on the company-wide agreement. Many companies sign agreements with one or two recruiting firms through HR or procurement to cover hiring across every department on standard terms. Those agreements make buying easy. They do not mean the firm has ever filled a brand, content or UX leadership role.
The approved firm is a reasonable place to start when the role is common and well defined. When the role is senior, specialized or hard to explain, it is worth asking whether a specialist can be brought in for this one search. That is usually a conversation with procurement, and the questions below help you make the case, or confirm that the firm you already have is up to it.
What does the recruiter know about your product?
A recruiter who understands your product can explain to a candidate why the role matters, and that is what gets a strong marketer who is not looking to take the first call. Marketing candidates evaluate the product before they evaluate the job: who buys it, how it is sold, what the brand stands for and where it is going. A recruiter who cannot talk about that is left selling a title and a salary range.
Ask them to describe your product, your customer and your competitors back to you in a couple of minutes. You are not checking whether they read your website the night before. You are checking whether they can hold a credible conversation with a Director of Brand who will ask exactly those questions in the first five minutes.
How well does the recruiter understand functional marketing roles?
A recruiter who understands functional marketing roles can tell apart titles that look alike on paper and do very different work in practice. A Content Director at one company runs editorial strategy, and at another manages an agency and a production calendar. A Digital Marketing Manager might own paid media, the website, marketing automation, or all three. If the recruiter cannot separate those, the shortlist gets built on titles instead of on the work.
Ask them how the role you are hiring for differs from the two roles closest to it, and what a strong person in the seat does in the first 90 days. The answer shows quickly whether they will screen for the job or only for the keywords.
What other questions should a CMO ask before signing?
- 01What do you know about our product and our customer? Ask for it in their own words, not a recap of your website.
- 02How well do you understand this functional role, and how does it differ from the roles next to it?
- 03Which similar roles have you filled, and at what kind of company? In-house marketing teams and agencies hire very differently.
- 04Who will actually run the search day to day? The person pitching and the person recruiting are not always the same.
- 05How would you describe our role to a candidate who is not looking? Ask them to say it out loud.
- 06Where is our brief unrealistic? A recruiter who will tell you that you are asking one person to do two jobs is worth more than one who agrees with everything.
| Question | A strong answer | A warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| Our product | Explains who buys it, how it is sold and why a marketer would want to work on it | Reads your About page back to you |
| The functional role | Separates your role from similar titles and describes the work in the first 90 days | Repeats the job description |
| Similar searches | Names in-house marketing roles filled at companies like yours | Talks about placement volume across every function |
| Who runs the search | Names the person and how often you will hear from them | "Our team," with no name attached |
| A hard brief | Tells you where the brief is unrealistic and why | Agrees with everything |
Why does a recruiter's marketing background matter?
A recruiter's marketing background matters because it changes the conversation with the candidates you most want. Senior marketers are used to being called by recruiters who do not understand what they do. When a recruiter can talk about positioning, channels or creative process with some fluency, the candidate treats the call as a conversation between peers rather than a screening, and is more open to a move.
It also protects the hiring manager. A recruiter who has worked alongside marketing teams will notice when a job description asks for everything, and will help you get to what the role really needs before the search starts, rather than after three weeks of mismatched candidates.