What are some tactics you have used to help with locating/recruiting the best Prod Mktg talent?

Absolutely lean on recruiting/HR as your partner as they’re extremely helpful. But my big tip is you also need to co-own this hiring process and personally plan to spend a few hours every single day on it, especially given how important it is.

Things you can do to help: Send job post to your LinkedIn network and have colleagues do the same with their networks. Also ask colleagues to target great people they worked with in prior roles. networks. Post the JD in marketing communities such as Sharebird or Product Marketing Alliance. 

Her is the big one: Get direct access to LinkedIn Recruiter and you do your own targeted searches and outreach..get good with LinkedIn search filters. And when pinging candidates, include a direct link for candidates to book on your calendar to speed things up substantially (no need for a manual scheduler to be involved).

And then stay very close to good candidates during the hiring process to answer questions they have and show them your dedication/prioritization to the role.

I've always tapped into my network to find the best talent. It is also really helpful to be part of communities like Sharebird, where so much great talent lives!

Locating experienced Product Marketing professionals can be challenging, especially considering the relatively recent emergence of the function. The good news is that Product Marketing is a highly cross functional role, and most promising talent often possess experience in at least one role a Product Marketer collaborates closely with: marketing, sales, professional services or product.

This background brings not only a deep understanding of these other functions but also greatly facilitates trust and streamlines collaboration.

In terms of the recruiting process itself, a traditional yet efficient approach is to have both conversations and an hands-on assessment of the candidates. Some candidates will excel at “self-promotion”, while others best demonstrate their capabilities through action. Employing both strategies allows for a comprehensive evaluation, providing the insights necessary to make informed hiring decisions.

Go beyond the title. Look for the experience and skills you need. Product Marketing can be many things so a title can even be misleading. So look for skills - here are some ideas:

Management Consultants (Mckinsey, BCG, Bain) can be a great profile - they have the business analysis and data analysis muscle, excellent executive communication and stakeholder management. They have great delivery and execution skills.

If you need someone who is going to focus on the Sales team - why not bring someone who has done sales and knows how it works/speaks/behaves? In this case I mean specific people withe sales experience, not Sales Enablement.

Product Managers - I would question why someone would leave a PM career to go into PMM (may depend on the kind of PM organization), but it is worth checking because having PM expertise is very valuable, specially if they did research and discovery (more then delivery)

Other Marketing roles - depending on what they bring. DemandGen is used to work with hard targets and is useful to add business acumen, urgency and impact. Content: they bring the writing chops, but you need to see strategic and customer-centric thinking.

CS - they can bring customer empathy and understanding, but sometimes too reactive mindset. Make sure they have analytical and critical thinking or can create new projects and campaigns.