Much more than a buzzword, "growth hacking" is no longer limited to startups. It concerns all marketing and sales teams, at different scales.
Dana Cano Suarez, former Head of Growth in several companies and certified HubSpot Coach, explains the importance of "growth hacking" and how to evaluate it in candidates.
What is the ideal Growth Hacker profile?
This is a profile that must be very analytical and sales result oriented.
He or she must also constantly try things out and learn from mistakes to continuously improve processes. This is a key aspect that must be highlighted when looking for a Growth Hacker, as the technological context is always evolving and requires a great capacity to adapt.
Also, even if "growth hacking" is largely based on data analysis and the convergence of several technological tools, the importance of empathy in this field should not be minimized. Before being a prospect, an individual remains a person whose needs must be understood before anything else. There is no point in spending financial and human resources on "growth hacking" if this work has not been done beforehand.
At what point in its development does a marketing team need to recruit a Growth Hacker?
It depends on the level of maturity of the company and its directors/owners. Many startups that have just launched onto the market mistakenly think that by hiring a growth manager they will already have guaranteed income in a few months. That does not work like that.
What is essential to understand is that no matter what title you have, everyone in the company, starting at C level, should have a growth mindset; otherwise, when hiring a growth manager, the company will not be prepared to experiment, execute quickly and be willing to make mistakes.
How to assess the skills of a Growth Hacker?
A Growth Hacker is a curious profile, with a mentality of generating a great impact and always developing new skills, obtaining horizontal knowledge from new tools as well as from their own experience and becoming a fast learner with the ability to collaborate across disciplines. In my opinion, they are the evolution of the T-Shape, whose range of qualities is expected to include knowledge of statistics, monetization, JavaScript, data science, team leadership, experimentation, user research; and over the years: Machine Learning, Web3, Python, etc.
Developing a case study and presenting the results is mostly the main way I use to know a bit more about the mental model and approach of a candidate. Personally, I put a lot of attention in their research process and their ability to empathize with the user and other team areas.
Why and how to evaluate the HubSpot skills of a candidate?
HubSpot is an all in one platform, which lets you control the whole user journey of the company from one place and also helps integrate marketing and sales goals. So I think it is a great platform for maintaining all the teams aligned and the process running smoothly.
What are the essential soft skills for a Growth Hacker?
Empathy is related to everything. Furthermore, continuous learning is one of the key elements of being a Growth Hacker, as you notice that every day is something new to experiment and test.
Also, communication skills, this involves active listening and presenting; creative thinking and problem solving; seller, being good at pitching your ideas, selling them effectively and getting the budget that you need; writing capabilities can be your best friend during reporting; enthusiasm mindset, inspiring others is crucial to have all the team onboard into new experiments and tests; teamwork and collaboration; project management skills.
Dana Cano Suarez is a former Head of Growth and a certified HubSpot Coach. Discover her tests created for Maki here.
