The Next Frontier for Search Marketing Standards

I believe it is time to introduce an additional topic into the standards dialogue that to date has been largely ignored. Currently there is no recognized standard for assessing the skills and knowledge level of the search marketing professional. This not only increases the difficulty for employers to accurately identify the talent level of the professional workforce, but also impacts the ability of our industry to achieve its forecasted growth.

In the next several years, literally thousands of new search marketing jobs will be created as part of the industry’s growth, and this will consequently drive an influx of new talent into the workforce.

In this environment, a company’s ability to accurately and quantitatively assess and compare the skill level of potential, as well as existing workers, changes from a best practice to a mission-critical requirement. Skills assessments are effective as a tool for screening new employees as well as evaluating where to set training and development priorities for existing employees. (more…)