Marketing is one of the most misunderstood functions in the business when it comes to hiring.

Not because HR teams aren’t doing their jobs. But because senior marketing roles are genuinely different to most other senior appointments - and the differences matter more than most hiring processes account for. Learning how to hire a senior marketer well starts with recognising that.

The result is a pattern that plays out consistently across UK businesses of all sizes: a marketing hire that looks right on paper, interviews well, and then underperforms in the role. Not because the candidate wasn’t talented. Because the process didn’t assess the things that actually predict success.

This is the thing 0.618 sees most often. And it is almost always avoidable.

The first mistake: treating it like any other senior hire

The competency frameworks, structured interview questions and psychometric assessments that work well for finance, operations or technology hires do not translate directly to senior marketing appointments.

Marketing, at senior level, is a function that sits at the intersection of commercial strategy, creative judgement, communication and data. A great marketing director is simultaneously a strategist, a communicator, a commercial thinker and a people leader. The balance between those things varies enormously by business type, growth stage and sector.

An interview process built around generic leadership competencies will surface candidates who are good at generic leadership. It will not reliably surface candidates who will drive commercial outcomes through marketing in your specific business context.

The process needs to be designed for the role. And that requires a specific understanding of what senior marketing success actually looks like.

The second mistake: relying on the CV too heavily

The CV tells you where someone has been. It tells you almost nothing about how they work, how they think, or whether they will thrive in your environment.

In marketing, this is a particular problem. A candidate who has held a marketing director title at a well-known brand carries the weight of that name on their CV - but the role itself might have been execution-heavy, agency-managed, or well-resourced in ways that will not transfer to your business.

Equally, a candidate from a smaller or less recognised business who has built a marketing function from the ground up, run a lean team with a modest budget, and delivered growth in a competitive market might be exactly what you need - but their CV doesn’t signal status in the same way.

Status bias is one of the most consistent errors in senior marketing recruitment. The candidate from the recognisable brand gets to the shortlist. The candidate who would actually perform better in your context doesn’t.

The third mistake: running a generic interview process

Most senior interview processes ask candidates to describe what they have done. Situational questions, competency examples, leadership scenarios. These are useful but limited.

They do not tell you how a candidate thinks in your context. They do not tell you how they approach problems they haven’t seen before. They do not tell you whether their commercial instincts are well-calibrated for the market you operate in.

A well-designed senior marketing interview process should include a commercial brief - a genuine problem the business is facing, presented to the candidate as a piece of work they present back. Not a test. A structured conversation that reveals how they think, what questions they ask, where their instincts take them.

This is one of the most reliable predictors of whether a senior marketer will succeed in a role. And it is absent from the majority of processes we see.

The fourth mistake: underestimating chemistry

Technical competence and relevant experience will get a candidate to the shortlist. Chemistry determines whether the hire actually works.

Chemistry is not about whether you like the person in the room. It is about whether their working style, decision-making approach and professional values align with the organisation, the leadership team and the team they will be managing.

A marketing director who is brilliant at setting strategy but uncomfortable with ambiguity will struggle in a business that moves fast and changes direction regularly. A candidate who is used to large agency support and significant budget will find it hard to adapt to a lean, in-house environment where they have to do more themselves. These mismatches are not always visible in the interview. They are visible in how someone has operated in previous environments - if you know what to look for.

At 0.618, this is the dimension we assess most rigorously. We call it the Chemistry Index™ - a structured approach to understanding how a candidate actually operates, not just how they describe themselves. It does not replace the skills assessment. It extends it into the territory that most processes leave to instinct.

The fifth mistake: moving too slowly

The best senior marketing candidates are in demand. They have options. And they draw conclusions about an organisation from every stage of the recruitment process - including how long it takes.

A process that takes three months from first interview to offer will lose candidates. Not always to a competing offer, though that happens. More often to growing uncertainty about whether the business knows what it wants, or whether the internal dynamic is more complex than it appears.

Decisiveness in a recruitment process is itself a signal. The organisations that move well - that structure the process tightly, communicate clearly, and make confident decisions when they find the right person - are more attractive to the candidates they are trying to attract.

If the process drags, the best candidates disengage. The ones who remain are the ones with fewer options.

What a better process looks like

A senior marketing recruitment process that consistently delivers strong outcomes tends to share a few characteristics.

It starts with a clear brief - not just a job description, but a genuine understanding of what the business needs to achieve through marketing and what success looks like in twelve months. This brief shapes everything that follows.

It uses a rigorous but respectful interview structure that respects the candidate’s time, surfaces how they think rather than just what they have done, and includes a commercial component that tests judgement in context.

It assesses chemistry systematically rather than leaving it to instinct - with consistent frameworks applied across all candidates rather than a subjective feel for who seemed best in the room.

And it moves at pace - with clear stages, clear timelines, and a decision-making process that reflects how seriously the business takes the appointment.

Working with 0.618

0.618 specialises in senior marketing and commercial recruitment. We work with HR leaders and business leaders who want to make appointments that stick - and we bring a level of marketing-specific expertise to the process that generalist recruiters cannot replicate.

If you are approaching a senior marketing appointment and want to understand what a more rigorous process looks like in practice, we would welcome a conversation.