Study finds 90% of UK businesses not equipped to recruit senior digital marketing staff

The findings of a report published today by digital marketing consultancy Heartwood Digital suggest that the majority of British businesses do not have the digital expertise to deal with the challenge of recruiting senior digital marketing staff.

"Management teams are relying on guesswork and intuition when it comes to job specification and candidate evaluation," commented lead consultant Iain Harper. "Such an approach inevitably increases business risk and is misleading to candidates," he added.

Illiya Vjestica, of Yorkshire-based online marketing consultancy Smartdog Digital, agreed saying, "It is clear that a lot of companies who are advertising for specific digital roles don’t understand what they require and what that candidate should be specialising in."

The study looked at whether or not advertised job descriptions for senior digital marketing and ecommerce roles were a) accurate and meaningful in their use of terminology; and b) specific in their definition of the job requirements. The vacancies investigated were for jobs in locations all over the UK, including several at major brands, with salaries ranging from £25k to £120k.

"A staggering 90% of the vacancies we examined were being advertised with inaccurate, vague and poorly defined job specifications," Harper continued, "This isn't a new problem, or indeed one that's likely to disappear anytime soon. Management teams need to be honest about their own expertise and smart enough to seek help when defining their requirements."

Heartwood Digital offers a digital marketing recruitment facilitation service designed to provide an impartial "expert interpreter" for the benefit of both recruiters and candidates.

ENDS