How to Compete for the Best Marketing Hires in 2025

Hiring marketers right now is often a headache for employers. The best candidates know their worth, have multiple offers lined up, and won’t hang around if your offer isn’t right. Salary alone doesn’t cut it anymore. Flexibility, career progression, and work they actually care about all matter just as much — sometimes more.

The problem? Brands, agencies, and start-ups are all chasing the same people. That means every delay, vague job spec, or clunky interview process puts you behind. In a market where great marketers are gone in days, you can’t afford to be slow or unclear about what you want.

In this blog, our marketing recruitment specialists share what candidates are really looking for in 2025, the mistakes that cost businesses the best people, and how to stand out when every competitor is fighting for the same hires.

What’s Shaping Marketing Talent Expectations?

Budgets have tightened, but expectations have grown

Since 2022, marketing teams have been working with smaller budgets while being told to deliver more measurable results. Performance marketers are expected to prove ROI within weeks. Brand teams are being asked to show commercial impact in every campaign. This shift has made marketers more selective about where they work. They want the right tools, access to data, and realistic targets before they will commit.

AI has changed workflows and career priorities

Generative AI has sped up production but also widened the gap between marketers who can use it well and those who cannot. Employers are looking for people who can integrate AI without losing originality or strategic thinking. Candidates want to know how a company uses AI. Is it helping them work smarter, or is it turning the role into prompt-chasing with no real creative or strategic input?

The creative process matters as much as flexibility

Hybrid and remote options are still expected, but marketers now ask deeper questions. They want to know how ideas are developed, whether collaboration is built into the process, and if there is budget for testing and experimenting. A role that is only about execution with no creative space is often a dealbreaker.

Career reassessment has not gone away

Post-pandemic, many mid and senior marketers have left agencies for in-house roles with stability, progression, and better work-life balance. Others have moved in the opposite direction for more freedom and variety. Either way, boundaries are clearer now. Marketers will not accept micromanagement, unclear direction, or outdated strategies.

What this means for employers

Hiring in this market is a two-way street. Marketers are looking at what you offer as closely as you are looking at their skills. If you want to attract the strongest candidates, you need to show:

• A role with a clear focus, not a vague list of every marketing task possible
• A process that is quick, respectful, and lets them show ideas early
• The right tools, budget, and leadership support to deliver results
• Flexibility built into policy, not offered case-by-case
• Space for creative thinking alongside delivery targets

If you are missing these, they will find an employer who has them.

Be Specific or Be Overlooked

Too often, job specs for marketing roles blur the lines between completely different skill sets. Asking for a "marketing generalist" might seem efficient, but it rarely attracts the right people. The top candidates want to know exactly what the role involves and whether it matches their expertise.

Performance vs Brand vs Content

Not all marketers are built the same. Be clear about what you really need:

• Performance Marketers are data-driven and focused on ROI. They thrive in roles centred on acquisition, paid channels, and conversion rates.
• Brand Marketers shape long-term perception and customer loyalty. They’re storytellers who think in campaigns, tone, and creative strategy.
• Content Marketers are audience builders. Their expertise lies in creating material that educates, inspires, and draws inbound traffic over time.

Trying to find all three in one candidate suggests unclear thinking internally and risks putting people off entirely.

Define What Good Looks Like

Being specific about skills and responsibilities helps candidates self-qualify:

• What tools should they be comfortable with? (e.g. GA4, HubSpot, Meta Ads Manager?)
• Are you hiring for someone who executes campaigns, builds strategy, or manages agencies?
• Is this a growth-stage role needing adaptability, or a scale-up brief needing depth and specialism?

One HBR article stresses that leaders must simply ask what candidates want and then provide it via clear job definitions and EVP alignment.

The clearer you are, the better your response. In-demand marketers won’t waste time applying for vague roles. They want a role that matches their capabilities, ambitions, and the way they like to work.

What Marketers Really Want (Not Just Salary)

Marketers are now weighing up entire offer packages. That’s everything from working style to progression paths and company values. If your offer is all salary, no substance, you’ll lose out to employers offering more rounded benefits.

So, what are marketers really looking for? According to Forbes, 76% of Millennials and 69% of Gen Z say flexible working options are a deciding factor in accepting a role. And here’s what we hear time and again from top candidates:

• Flexible working as standard. Remote or hybrid options are expected, not a bonus.
• Clear progression routes. Ambitious marketers want to see how their careers grow with you.
• Strong internal culture. Inclusive, collaborative, and non-corporate cultures attract creative thinkers.
• Purpose-led work. Many candidates favour companies with a mission that aligns to their values.
• Autonomy and trust. Micromanagement is a dealbreaker for senior talent.

If you’re hiring for mid- to senior-level roles, these factors often outweigh salary. Even for junior roles, culture and growth prospects play a major role in decision-making. Marketers want to know what it actually feels like to work at your company day to day—and whether their contributions will be recognised.

Mistakes That Cost You Talent

When hiring for marketing roles, many businesses trip over the same avoidable issues. These are red flags that make strong candidates walk away:

• Vague job specs. If it reads like a wishlist, it’ll feel directionless. Candidates need clarity to see if they fit.
• Unrealistic salary bands. If your pay doesn’t match the market, strong marketers won’t apply or they’ll drop out later in the process.
• Slow processes. The best candidates are off the market in days. Dragging your feet means losing talent.
• Too many interview stages. Three is usually the sweet spot. Anything more looks indecisive.
• Generic messaging. If your brand tone, values, and culture don’t come through, candidates won’t connect.

The good news is that all of these issues are fixable, but only if you spot them early. Candidates don’t give second chances to vague briefs or five-stage interviews. They’ll move on to businesses that value their time and communicate clearly.

To avoid these traps, review your hiring process from the candidate’s point of view. Would you apply for your own job ad? If the answer isn’t an easy yes, it’s time for a rethink.

Why Your Employer Brand Matters

Strong employer brands attract candidates before you even post a job. For marketers in particular, your brand reputation carries real weight. If your business doesn’t look like a place that values creativity, autonomy, or progression, the best talent won’t apply. You need to understand where your employer brand shows up. This includes:

• Glassdoor reviews. Candidates read them. A lack of transparency, poor leadership scores, or dated feedback all raise alarm bells.
• Your LinkedIn presence. Is your tone of voice modern and engaging? Do team posts reflect company culture?
• Your website and job specifications. Outdated language or corporate jargon won’t resonate with digitally-savvy marketers.
• Employee advocacy. If no one on your team is sharing wins or celebrating projects, that silence says a lot.

Digital-first candidates, especially in marketing, do their homework. They know how to research, and they judge what they find. If your online presence doesn’t reflect your culture and values, strong applicants will simply go elsewhere.

An easy first step? Audit your candidate touchpoints. Refresh the language in your job descriptions, encourage employee content on LinkedIn, and review how your brand appears in search results. These small updates can have a big impact on who decides to click “apply.”

In-Demand Roles Right Now

We’re seeing consistent demand across marketing teams for highly specialised roles, especially across content, performance, and CRM. If you’re hiring in these areas, competition is fierce. Here are just a few of the roles clients are moving quickly on:

• CRM Manager: Ownership of lifecycle marketing is a top priority for brands trying to drive retention and LTV.
• Paid Search Executive: Agencies and in-house teams alike are scaling performance marketing capabilities.
• SEO Manager: As content strategies mature, SEO is back in focus for long-term organic growth.
• Social Media Lead: Demand is high for candidates who can build brand and drive engagement across platforms.
• Performance Marketing Manager: Data-led, ROI-driven roles continue to dominate headcount growth.
• Content Strategist: Creative talent who can align content output to commercial goals are highly sought after.

Each of these roles plays a different part in shaping high-performing, creative marketing teams. If you’re hiring in any of these areas, it’s worth benchmarking your offer and moving fast when you meet the right candidate.

How Sphere Supports From Brief to Benchmarked Offers

Hiring great marketers doesn’t happen by just posting a job. It needs positioning, process, and precision, and that’s where we come in. At Sphere, we help businesses sharpen their briefs, benchmark their offers, and connect with candidates they can’t reach directly.

What do we offer that in-house teams often can’t?

• Access to passive talent. We tap into our network of high-performing marketers who aren’t actively looking but are open to the right offer.
• Market benchmarking. We give you real-time insight into salary expectations, job titles, and demand across performance, brand, and content roles.
• Brief calibration. We help shape the spec to reflect what candidates want and what’s realistic for your budget and goals.
• Faster hiring. We’re plugged into the market and move fast. That means fewer delays, stronger shortlists, and less risk of dropouts.

Whether you’re hiring a CRM Manager, Social Media Lead, or Paid Search Executive, we know what good looks like. 

Need help with your next marketing hire? Let’s talk. 

Or you can explore how Sphere can support your next marketing recruitment challenge:

• Marketing Recruitment
• Creative Services Recruitment