Intro

I’ve looked at thousands of marketing CVs over the years.

And I still think CVs are pretty shit at telling you who’s actually good. 😂

They’re necessary.

They’re useful.

But particularly at senior level, they have a habit of becoming a collection of increasingly impressive words.

“Led.”

“Transformed.”

“Drove.”

“Delivered.”

“Owned.”

Lovely.

But what actually happened?

That’s what I want to know.

Tell me what changed because you were there

If you’re a senior marketer, don’t just tell me:

“Responsible for digital transformation.”

Tell me what the situation looked like when you arrived.

What was broken?

What did you change?

What did you personally do?

What happened afterwards?

That’s far more useful.

Separate your contribution from the team’s

Senior marketers should absolutely talk about their teams.

Good leaders don’t do everything themselves.

But when I’m assessing somebody I need to understand the difference between:

“My team delivered £20m growth.”

and:

“Here’s the part I played in creating the conditions that produced £20m growth.”

Both can be impressive.

Just make the distinction clear.

Give me numbers, with context

Numbers help.

Revenue.

ROAS.

CAC.

Retention.

Brand metrics.

Pipeline.

Market share.

Budget.

Team growth.

But numbers without context can be meaningless.

If revenue increased 40%, was that because of your marketing strategy or because the company acquired another business?

Tell the story.

Talk about the stuff that went wrong

This might sound counterintuitive.

But I learn loads from asking senior candidates about things that didn’t work.

A campaign that failed.

A hire you got wrong.

A strategy you changed.

A disagreement with the CEO.

Nobody who’s spent 15 years in marketing has got everything right.

Pretending otherwise makes me more suspicious, not less. 😂

Don’t turn the CV into War and Peace

You don’t need to document every task you’ve performed since 2004.

Your CV needs to create enough confidence and curiosity for somebody to want the conversation.

Then the conversation goes deeper.

One final thing

Your CV’s job isn’t to prove you’re perfect.

It’s to help somebody understand why your experience might be relevant to the problem they need solving.

That’s a much better starting point.