## The problem with marketing hiring today
Marketing is one of the hardest functions to hire for because the role titles are vague. A "Growth Manager" at a 50-person startup and a "Growth Manager" at a Fortune 500 company do completely different work. Resumes list tools (Google Ads, HubSpot, Mixpanel) but tell you nothing about strategic thinking.
## What Evalon's Marketing Assessment measures
Our marketing assessment bank covers three core competencies:
### Paid media strategy
Candidates are given a realistic budget, target CPA, and audience segment. They must allocate spend across channels, justify their media mix, and forecast results. This reveals whether they think in terms of *unit economics* or just "more impressions."
### SEO and content strategy
We present a content audit scenario—pages with declining traffic, keyword cannibalization, and technical debt. Candidates prioritize fixes and explain their reasoning. Strong marketers distinguish between quick wins (fixing title tags) and long-term plays (topical authority).
### Analytics and attribution
Given a multi-touch conversion path, candidates must identify which channels deserve credit, recommend an attribution model, and flag data quality issues. This separates the "dashboard watchers" from the analysts who drive decisions.
## Best practices for marketing hiring managers
1. **Send the assessment before the phone screen.** You'll immediately know who to fast-track.
2. **Customize the scoring weights.** If you're hiring for a performance marketing role, weight paid media at 50%. For a content lead, weight SEO higher.
3. **Use the results in the interview.** Ask candidates to walk through their assessment answers live. You'll learn how they think under pressure.
4. **Benchmark against your team.** Have your top performers take the same assessment. This calibrates your expectations to reality.
## Results from early adopters
Companies using Evalon's marketing assessment report **35% faster time-to-hire** and **2.1x higher hiring manager satisfaction** compared to portfolio-only screening. The assessment doesn't replace the interview—it makes the interview dramatically more productive.