How do adtech companies balance technical skill and creativity in the talent they hire? For Digiday’s recent Careers column, Jenna Griffith, SVP, Head of Professional Services for MediaMath, weighs in.
At MediaMath, specifically at entry-level positions, the skills that we are looking for are not tremendously different than other industries. First and foremost, we look for people who are smart, passionate, and nice. There is no ‘ad tech knowledge’ mention in there purposefully. I often find bringing people in with expertise in other industries to be helpful — different perspectives can add a tremendous amount of value when focusing on client service. Yes, employees need to learn the technology in order to understand how best to apply it. But the technical aspect is much easier to learn than learning how to creatively approach a client problem and return a solution. One of my favorite interview questions is asking a candidate to teach me something, anything, about which they are passionate. I have learned about rugby, quantum dots and electronic music — each of these people had little adtech experience at the point of hire, but are now some of our most highly valued employees given their passion, creative mindset, and attention to detail.