Marketing automation is a growing market and professionals with these skills are in increasingly high demand. If you are looking for the next ‘star’ employee to drive your marketing automation team, then you may come unstuck, unless you think outside the box.
We recently compiled a report about the supply and demand of marketing automation skills across various platforms. The report highlighted that a vast majority of companies are currently looking for the same skills, with Eloqua consulting skills being the most sought after. At present, just over 36% of all available marketing automation positions are for Eloqua Consultants. In contrast, if you compare this to marketing automation professionals currently seeking work, only a quarter possess Eloqua skills. Evidently the demand is much higher than the supply, but the the question is, how can employers overcome this?
With more business’ looking to roll out marketing automation software during 2016, the demand is only set to increase. As a result, companies need to look at different options. One of the easiest ways to find the talent needed, is to recruit or find people in the organisation who already have good marketing automation experience, but who have the less sought after platform skills and cross train them. As a leading expert in marketing automation recruitment, we have worked with clients in the past, who have recruited marketing automation experts on their platform, through a contract role, and then utilised them to train their employees, thereby giving both the employee and the company the skills they needed.
Cross training marketing automation experts also has the added benefit of saving the company time and money. For example, taking someone from within the organisation and teaching them the skills they need not only saves on recruitment costs, but also upskills the individual, plus there is no settling in period as you know the individual is already someone you want to employ, who possess most of the skills and experience you are looking for.
But there is also another unseen benefit from cross training. Within the consulting world, sought after skills that are in short supply creates a fiercely competitive environment. As a result smaller consulting companies and end-users may not have big recruitment budgets, and as a consequence will lose out on good experts to bigger companies. But, by offering in-house and upskilling opportunities, you inadvertently buy loyalty. Needless to say there will be a time when the individual will move on, but hopefully in the meantime you have utilised them to train your up and coming talent.
So, whilst it is clear that a number of companies are going to be struggling in 2016 to find the talent they need, this need not set your company’s marketing strategy back. Better utilisation of existing talent, and working with a good specialist recruitment company to fill the knowledge gaps, will mean that your marketing automation plan need not suffer.
If you would like to read more articles on recruitment click here. Alternatively, contact the team on rod@resourceondemand.com if you require further assistance and one of the team will be able to help.