How can marketers find new talent that will bring fresh and innovative ideas to the company?

To get the best new employees, I recommend a pretty lengthy interview process involving a portfolio review with art and creative directors. Don't just be interested in a candidate's skills, but also who they are as people. This ensures that there is good chemistry and synergy with the rest of your team.

When candidates interview, regardless of their role, they should be able to quantify the impact of their previous work.

If you, as a candidate, have the opportunity to talk to a hiring manager, you should think about what the meaning and impact of your work has been.

Take a look at what we call a employee's “contribution margin,” which is being able to quantify a top-line or bottom-line impact of the work he or she does. You should be able to stop an employee in the hallway and have him or her tell you about how much revenue a particular project that he or she worked on generated. I think that's incredibly important. If I look at resumes, I'm asking candidates about the impact of their previous work.

Hire people who have experience in your field. Make sure your candidates are passionate about building something bigger than themselves. Look for people who will be invested in their work, will be passionate about working with other smart and creative people, who will be committed and driven to work on challenging projects and simply people who are innovative and creative.

With our interview process for nearly every role, we give people a puzzle, brain teaser or riddle to see how they approach problems, break them down, solve them and explains their solutions. This shows strong analytical and problem-solving abilities. This also shows how creative a candidate to be. Don't necessarily judge a candidate if his or her answer was right or wrong, but on how they solve problems and how creative they can be in coming up with a solution.

From the February 2009 Issue of Direct Marketing News »