6 Things to Consider When Hiring a MOPs Pro

Hiring new talent for your marketing operations team? You’re not the only one. MOPs is a discipline on fire, and companies everywhere are scrambling to build up this critical function. But this rush to expand marketing operations teams, combined with a meager talent supply, has put employers in a tricky spot.

Faced with a unique set of challenges, marketing operations hiring managers need to be strategic in their approach to finding, wooing, and landing new talent for their teams. Here are six things to keep in mind:

1. Your Senior MOPs Pros Need Support

The ideal marketing operations team, like most any other, functions best when it’s shaped like a pyramid: a small number of strategic, senior leaders on top, supported by mid-level managers who are in turn assisted by a wide base of junior specialists. But in our 2022 State of Marketing Operations Talent report, conducted in partnership with Highway Education, we found that the average MOPs team is, in reality, shaped more like a blob.

In fact, we found that junior folks made up the smallest percentage of the average team, leaving more experienced veterans stranded to pick up the slack of day-to-day tasks. A full one-third of marketing operations professionals told us that they felt that the work they were left stuck with was too easy, which is a perfect recipe for turnover.

“Without enough junior recruits, senior people get stuck in triage,” explains Sara McNamara, a marketing operations leader at Salesforce. “They want to do strategic work and progress in their careers, but instead, they continue to get hit with requests while being under-resourced. It’s very demoralizing in the long-term.”

2. There’s No Reliable Supply for Junior MOPs Talent

Marketing operations teams are growing like crazy, with the average team size increasing by 66% between 2020 and 2022, and doubling in companies of ten thousand employees or fewer. But as more and more businesses look to grow their marketing operations departments, they’re finding themselves increasingly up against a supply problem. 

“Marketing ops isn’t taught in schools,” says Crissy Saunders, co-founder and CEO of marketing operations consulting agency CS2. “It’s not something that people even know about until they’re in a marketing entry-level job.”

With fewer qualified recruits than open positions, finding and attracting the right talent can feel like a job in and of itself.

3. Salary Expectations are on the Rise

With the mismatch of talent supply and demand, marketing operations pros—especially the most desirable ones—are commanding higher salaries every year. 

According to data collected by Sara McNamara, the average salary for MOPs pros has jumped more than $10,000 since 2020. 

“The best marketing ops people have their pick of jobs,” says Darrel Alfonso, a marketing operations leader at Amazon. “They can switch every year for increases in salary, and I don’t blame them. It’s a candidate’s market right now when it comes to marketing ops.”

4. Hiring Doesn’t Happen Overnight

If you think you’ll be able to fill an open MOPs position within a month or two, you may need to think again. Our survey found that most teams spend four or more months on the hiring process, and invest an average of more than $22,500 in the process. 

Your current staff will feel the crunch as well. 60% of hiring teams devote at least five hours to the process every week, and 96% spend at least three.  

5. Your Job Requirements Impact Your Talent Pool

With a limited supply of new talent and long hiring times, it’s crucial to design a job description that will maximize the number of qualified applicants you can consider. 

Pierce Ujjainwalla, co-founder and CEO of Knak, argues that companies can accidentally exclude many great candidates by requiring unnecessary qualifications. “When I look at the marketing operations job boards, so many listings require candidates to know HTML and CSS,” he says. “Why are we still expecting people to know these skills in 2022? If you eliminate unnecessary requirements, you can open up the job to so many more people.”

6. Most Junior Hires Need Training

With few sources for trained junior talent, most companies will need to expect to include a ramp-up period for any new junior hire. Our study found that more than 80% of new hires aren’t fully ramped for at least six months and that nearly 70% of teams put at least five hours per week of existing employee time toward training. 

Takeaways

Hiring in the midst of the talent crisis facing MOPs isn’t easy, but doing so is essential for every marketing team. As you approach your next hiring initiative, consider how you can best serve your strategic thinkers, broaden your talent pool, and build a plan to ramp your new hires so they can make an impact ASAP. 

This post is part of the State of MOPs Talent study jointly sponsored by Demandbase and Highway. Demandbase, smarter GTM for B2B brands, helps marketing and sales teams spot the juiciest opportunities earlier and progress them faster. Highway helps MOPs leaders overcome the industry talent crisis by providing job-ready junior MOPs talent for leaders to hire.