How to find an experienced growth hacker

We have already discussed how to launch a growth marketing team and who can be a part of it. But you may need to hire new people for the growth team over time. 

This may be due to mastering new channels. For example, you have never run ads on Google Analytics, but now you realize you need this channel. Or new people may be required for product development: with the emergence of new tools or entering new markets.

To find a growth hacker for your startup is difficult but possible. It would help if you looked for someone with more experience as a marketer or product manager.

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We share tips that help us find suitable people for the growth team 👇

How to find a suitable person for the position of growth hacker 

1. Record a video about your growth team. Thanks to this openness, you will weed out people not ready to work at your pace, develop ideas for growth hypotheses, and constantly make mistakes. The video will attract those who want to do something like this. 

2. Offer to complete a test task. Ask them to do what your team usually does.

Examples of test tasks:

We want to test whether implementing chatbot templates in our service is worth it. 

Suggest an experiment on how to push demand for them before development begins. Describe the process, how much time and money it will take to implement, and what criteria you will use to determine the experiment’s success.

We want to increase the conversion to signup on our main page. 

Offer one change you would make to achieve this goal. Describe the change, its effect, how much time and money it will take to implement, and what criteria you will use to determine the experiment’s success.

We want to launch chatbot advertising for the site. The goal is to get site visits for less than $2 and convert them to service registration. 

What ad platform would you choose first? Why? Offer ad text, an image, or a video that you would use in the ad. What keywords or audience would you target for this ad? 

3. Check how suitable the person is for you during the interview. Try to understand if they are ready to offer ideas for your marketing growth strategy, do something with their own hands, and work at a fast pace. 

For example, we ask candidates what they did after launching advertising: did they optimize landing pages and interact with users? We also ask candidates to talk about an unsuccessful case of hacking growth from their previous work and the conclusions they drew from it. 

Learning from mistakes is an essential skill for a growth hacker.

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What qualities are necessary for a growth hacker

Based on our experience, we have compiled a list of required qualities for a growth hacker. During the test task and interview, try to determine if the candidate has these qualities:

• Creativity, unconventional thinking, courage.
• “Versatility” — a growth hacker should be able to write text, build a landing page in a constructor, and design a button. This is necessary for a successful growth marketing test process: creating MVPs quickly and without involving team members from other departments.
• The ability to learn from failed hypotheses and not get discouraged by them. The ability to draw conclusions about why hypotheses did not work out.
• Empathy — a growth hacker needs to understand the behavioral psychology of customers. They should know what is essential to customers, why they buy the product, what the customers like, and what they don’t like about it. This knowledge helps them to communicate effectively with customers in advertising campaigns and increase growth marketing metrics more effectively.
• Experience working in startups. Such companies have many tasks and few employees. Their employees are versatile and can do a little bit of everything. Just what is needed for a growth hacker.

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Let’s recap 

How to find a suitable candidate for the position of growth hacker?

1. Record a video about how your growth team works.
2. Offer a test task and ask the candidate to do what your team usually does.
3. Check how well the candidate fits with your team at the interview. Try to understand if they are ready to come up with ideas, do hands-on work, and work quickly.

What qualities should a growth hacker possess?

• Creativity, unconventional thinking, courage.
• “Versatility.”
• The ability to learn from failed hypotheses and not get discouraged by them.
• Empathy.
• Experience working in startups.

Read also

• Growth marketing: ultimate guide by a growth hacker;
• Product-Led Growth Marketing: guide to hacking your development via product;
• Product led growth metrics: 13 key indicators for SaaS companies to track;
• Benefits of Product led growth: 12 PLG benefits for your business;
• B2B growth marketing: guide on how to accelerate business success in B2B;
• B2B growth hacking strategies: 14 ideas for your marketing campaigns;
• Growth hacking canvas: 9 steps to schedule your own growth plan;
• Growth marketing playbook: over 40 ideas from Dashly and its customers;
• Growth marketing tips: 15 tactics to inspire your team;
• Growth marketing services: 6 agencies that will transform your growth strategy
• Growth hacking tools: 10 instruments for your growth experiments;
• Growth hacking examples: 13 ideas to boost your business development;
• Growth marketing newsletter: 18 expert digests for regular insights;
• Growth marketing vs performance marketing: What to choose for your business;
• RevOps vs Sales Ops: Know the difference;
• RevOps tech stack: Guide to the best tools;
• Revenue operations metrics: 10 metrics and KPIs to track your performance;
• PLG tools: Ultimate guide to the best instruments;
• Sales led growth: What is it and why your business needs it;
• Growth marketing framework: Battle-tested insights from Dashly experts;
• Growth Product Manager: Charting new frontiers in product scaling;
• 20 product led growth examples to inspire your team [expert edition].