“Must Have Industry Experience” – A Shortsighted POV

Can we just stop with the industry experience requirement for marketing-related roles? Since the beginning of my career in public relations, nothing has irked me more than the “must have industry experience” caveat in marketing-related job descriptions. 

I recognize that industry-specific experience is valuable for certain roles, for marketing professionals, the relevant experience should be marketing, communications, or public relations—not a particular industry.

Why Industry Experience Doesn’t Matter

I know with certainty that recruiters are automatically weeding out highly qualified candidates who could make a significant impact on their business because they lack fintech, healthcare, higher education, or whatever specific industry experience they believe is required. That’s shortsighted.

I was asked this question in an interview recently - “What are your thoughts on the fact that you don’t have XYZ industry experience?”  

I respect the curiosity of the question rather than an automatic assumption that I don’t have the experience to grow his organization or achieve its strategic goals.

My response? If I don’t understand the fundamentals of marketing – building an integrated and transformative strategy, the importance of ICPs, buyer journeys, and market needs, creating campaigns that deliver leads and revenue, establishing brand differentiation –  then all the industry experience in the world is moot.

Freshy Fresh Perspectives

I have learned many different industries over the years and been successful building distinctive brands, creating unique and engaging content that captures mindshare, and enabling sales and success teams to meet their goals. I’ve built strong relationships with industry analysts and key media sources to keep my brand top of mind and well-positioned in the market.  

In fact, I’d argue that coming in with a clean slate is actually an advantage. Marketers without industry baggage ask the same questions that prospective clients would be asking:

• Why is the product positioned this way?

• How is it actually different from competitors?

• Why are competitors framing their messaging this way?

• What’s the biggest challenge our customers are facing?

• Why are we winning (or not)?

Outsiders bring a fresh approach because we’re leveraging best practices from other organizations - challenging the status quo instead of defaulting to “how it’s always been done.”

If you hire someone with industry knowledge, especially from a competitor, it certainly accelerates their onboarding and brings certain competitive insight. But they’re going to assume they already know everything and I haven’t seen that typically yield a significant impact.

Great Marketers Adapt and Transform

A marketer who’s worth their salt, can leverage and adapt past experiences for new audiences. The HR leader isn’t getting relevant information from Security Magazine and an intelligence analyst certainly isn’t reading TD Magazine, obviously. Likewise, the content strategy that worked so well for contact center software buyers won’t necessarily resonate with automotive suppliers. 

Good marketers understand:

• The nuances of the buyer journey related to your ideal customer profile

• How to connect marketing strategy to organization and sales goals 

• Which tactics support that strategy along with metrics and data needed to track success 

• How to create the narratives that grab the attention of the ICP and then nurture them until they’re ready for those sales conversations. 

A Caveat for Certain Marketing Experience

My one caveat for where specific marketing experience matters is marketing disciplines. Marketing consumers is different from B2B marketing in terms of budgets size and allocation, messaging and tone, channels and product positioning? Having an understanding of SaaS metrics vs. how a consulting firm tracks revenue gives someone an edge. But these differences are tied to marketing fundamentals, not industry-specific knowledge.  

If I was a recruiter parsing those resumes, I would first and foremost focus on track record:

• Has the person created a marketing strategy that drove results?

• Has the person successfully launched or rebranded a company to increase market share? 

• Do they have the experience marketing to B2B or B2C buyers (or both)?

• Are they demonstrating various success metrics?

The rest can be learned and can bring a perspective that can get a company out of a slump or provide the spark needed to spur accelerated growth.

At the end of the day, marketing is about understanding audiences, positioning products effectively, and driving business outcomes. Industry-specific knowledge? That can be picked up along the way. Please, can we stop letting “must have industry experience” hold back talented people from making a real impact.