Identifying Senior Marketing Talent You May Be Missing
Hiring managers are missing out on strong senior marketing talent not because it isn’t there, but because job titles no longer tell the full story. As teams have flattened and responsibilities have expanded, many marketers are performing at a higher level than their title implies. For employers, this disconnect can quietly block access to the very candidates they’re trying to attract.
THE COSTLY MISTAKE MOST HIRING MANAGERS ARE MAKING
If you are hiring a senior marketing leader, there is a good chance you have already made this mistake. You have seen a CV or LinkedIn profile, clocked the title, assumed the candidate is too junior and moved on.
The problem is that job titles in marketing have never been less reliable as a measure of seniority. A "Director" in the US is often the equivalent of a VP or Head of Marketing in the UK. A "Marketing Manager" in a scale-up might be the most senior marketing professional in the business, reporting directly to the CEO, owning the full strategy and budget and driving commercial outcomes across the organisation.
This is the Title Trap and it is costing businesses some of their strongest potential hires.
WHAT THE TITLE TRAP LOOKS LIKE IN PRACTISE
Karen Lloyd, founder and host of the Spotlight on B2B Marketing podcast and Managing Director of Armstrong Lloyd, sees this play out regularly in senior B2B marketing recruitment. She recently shared a telling example:
"Recently, I reviewed a candidate's LinkedIn who had genuinely senior experience: part of the executive leadership team, reports directly to the board, led marketing through Series C and D funding rounds, managed the company through an acquisition and brand spin-off, sets overall company direction from a marketing perspective, owns budget allocation to hit company OKRs. But here's what their LinkedIn actually said: 'Initiated performance marketing campaigns...' 'Managed SEO and SEM...' 'Oversaw email marketing...' It read like a Digital Marketing Manager's CV. All tactical execution. No mention of executive team membership. No board reporting. No strategic ownership. No funding rounds or M&A experience. As a hiring manager, I almost missed them entirely."
The issue cuts both ways. Candidates undersell themselves and hiring managers over-rely on titles as a shortcut for seniority. The result is a mismatch that benefits no one.
WHY TITLES CANNOT BE TRUSTED ACROSS BORDERS
Title conventions vary considerably between the UK and US, and across different types of business. In a large corporate, a "Director" might manage a team of fifty and sit three levels below the board. In a Series B technology company, the same title might mean sole charge of the entire marketing function with direct board accountability.
The same candidate, same experience, same impact: two completely different titles.
For HR leaders and hiring managers operating across geographies or recruiting from international talent pools, this ambiguity is particularly significant. Filtering by title rather than by scope and impact means you are almost certainly narrowing your candidate pool in the wrong places.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR INSTEAD
As Karen puts it: "Your job title is just noise. Your impact is the signal." The same principle applies when you are assessing candidates. Here is where to focus your attention.
Reporting lines tell you far more than titles. A candidate who presented to the board, sat in the executive leadership team or had direct CEO accountability has operated at a genuinely senior level, regardless of what their job title says. Ask about this directly in your screening process.
Business context is a strong proxy for strategic seniority. Candidates who have led marketing through funding rounds, acquisitions, rebrands or international expansion have navigated the kind of complexity that only comes with genuine ownership of the function. These experiences do not appear in a job title.
Look for strategic ownership over tactical execution. A CV that reads like a list of channels and tools tells you what someone has done. A CV that articulates revenue impact, team growth, market penetration or commercial outcomes tells you how they think. That distinction matters enormously at senior level.
What Can HR and Marketing Hiring Managers Do to Hire More Effectively?
Fixing the Title Trap in your hiring process is straightforward once you know what to look for. Here are four practical steps:
Redesign your screening criteria around scope and impact, not job titles. Build your shortlisting process around reporting lines, budget ownership, team size and business context rather than title alone. Brief your HR team and any internal recruiters accordingly, particularly when hiring across borders or from international candidate pools where title conventions differ significantly from UK norms.
Write job briefs that describe what you need the hire to own, not just the title you are recruiting for. A well-written brief that articulates the scope, accountability, and commercial outcomes of the role will attract candidates who think in terms of ownership and impact. It also signals to the market that your organisation understands what senior marketing leadership actually looks like, which matters when you are competing for the best talent.
Build cross-border title awareness into your hiring process. If you are recruiting from the US, Europe or other markets, take the time to understand how title conventions differ. A structured approach to assessing seniority based on reporting lines, commercial ownership and strategic scope will serve you far better than relying on titles that mean different things in different contexts.
Work with a specialist B2B marketing recruiter who can do this work for you. A recruiter who understands the senior B2B marketing landscape can identify genuine strategic leaders that automated screening and title-based filtering will miss. Whether you need a permanent senior hire, a CMO-level search, a fractional CMO, or an interim solution, the right recruiter will look past the title and find you the right person.
The best candidate for your senior marketing role might already be in your pipeline.
The question is whether your screening process is set up to find them.
Karen Lloyd, March 2026
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