How to hire the most amazing community manager: A Timely Guide from Clocktower Advisors
Your organization has embarked upon a plan to launch a customer community. All of your staff is fully leveraged, but you could always allocate someone from the communications team to spend a few hours a week keeping an eye on the discussions.
Stop.
First of all, you need to know that communities don’t run themselves. Second, you also need to know that new communities are put at a severe disadvantage when you try to allocate an existing employee resource to the task, especially one without an orientation to launching and growing new communities.
Yes, some communities manage to grow and develop on their own. In the case of hobby or other informal online communities, it’s possible that they might even thrive with the help of volunteers. But communities attached to business entities and actual organizations need to be under management, if only for your own protection.
Sooner or later, you will arrive at the conclusion that you need a community manager. Many organizations struggle when it comes to hiring a community manager who is right for their organization and right for the community. It is a unique role that is sometimes mistaken for something else, such as a social media manager.
These roles couldn’t be farther apart.
In truth, community management is closer to a customer success manager’s role.
In this guide, I will answer a number of the most common questions I have encountered over the years I’ve been working in the online community space. I combine this with my direct experience helping organizations hire community managers and over 15 years of technology and executive recruitment.
Do I need to hire a community manager before my community launches?
You wouldn’t think this is even a question but it has happened a crazy number of times over the years that I have worked on many communities.
Companies are pretty good at allocating budget for technology, the community platforms that will deliver the experience, but they are less good at planning for a staff to manage them. In more traditional organizations, the more forward looking leaders assume that someone from the IT department can manage things like spam, password resets, and any necessary technology fixes.
But that person isn’t a community manager. That person is administrative tech support.
The CMX 2022 Community Industry Report revealed the a surprisingly large percentage of community managers aren’t hired until after the community is launched.
…only 44% of organizations report that they had a dedicated community manager when they launched their community. That means a lot of businesses are experimenting with community before they are ready to hire for it. — CMS Industry Report 2022
Despite any transparent rationalizations that a company may put forward about taking a lean learning approach, that’s putting the cart before the horse. Even if you are considering the community as a sort of pilot project, which is something of a red flag for indicating a lack of commitment, you owe it to the effort to dedicate someone to the role who will be accountable.
If it is at all possible, you want your community manager to be deeply involved in the planning, configuration, and launch of your community. Hiring someone after the fact invites trouble.
Do we need to hire a community manager who comes from our industry?
The question of whether you should hire a community manager who has specific industry experience in your sector comes up often. It’s a matter of some debate among community professionals and I’ve heard good arguments in both directions.
A community manager with experience in your sector may bring with them a series of valuable relationships that could help your community effort to launch more effectively. On the other hand, you might have a very difficult time finding someone from your sector who also has the right skills to manage a virtual community.
A community manager without experience in your sector may have highly applicable and specific experience launching communities, perhaps even very similar types of communities. On the other hand, they may shy away from entering into more technical discussions and might require a great deal of time to learn your sector. They may never learn it or, worse, demonstrate a distinct lack of enthusiasm for it which can (and will) show through in their community interactions.
Drawing upon my experience as a recruiter, my opinion is that you should try to find an experienced community manager with similar or close experience to your industry. Rather than an apples to apples, you may find someone who is more of an apples to pears match for what you need. Stay away from the apples to oranges crowd. Their experiences will be too different to be viable candidates.
Another consideration will be just how technical your industry happens to be. Is someone outside of your space pretty much doomed if they try to come in and understand the nuances of conversation that are going to take place in your community? If so, you might be better off hiring someone from the space and putting them through one of the many good training courses for community management.
Can you give an example of a good job description?
At the time I’m writing this blog, most companies are understaffed and feeling the crushing weight of trying to find new hires. Building a highly compelling job description is more important than ever. But how can you bubble up into the awareness of those you are trying to reach?
Traditional job descriptions start with some basic hype about how great it is to work for your company. Maybe you were even acknowledged as a top place to work. Everybody starts with these sorts of statements, so that’s not a good way to stand out.
Start with why
Think instead about characterizing the experience of working in your company by taking a prompt from Simon Sinek and start by answering the question “Why?”
Why does your company do what it does? What difference does it make?
Many who are looking with a more careful eye toward potential employers are asking whether working for your company will have a negative impact on the environment, whether the company cares about social justice, or whether it cares more about the bottom line than it’s own people.
Use video to stand out
You can also stand out by including employee testimonials. Why would you not include a video preview of your workplace and testimonials from some of your top employees?
Videos to describe working for your company are perhaps not too uncommon as part of a careers page, but why not stand out by having your leadership team talk about the specific community role you’re hiring for and why it’s key to the organization?
Don’t forget the basics, plus…
If these things are beyond your reach for the moment, your job description, as table stakes, must include things like the daily job duties, qualifications desired, and responsibilities.
Level up your description by describing the immediate, short term, medium term, and long term goals for the role. You can also outline a potential career path in the organization.
Some of the best descriptions also include information about the company culture, values, and social good activities. In short, it’s good policy to help a potential team member see how they will part of something greater that makes a difference in the lives of others
Where should we post the community manager job?
Jenny Weigle, has written an excellent blog about where to post jobs for community managers. I’d be doing little more than reproducing her work, so instead I suggest you head over and check it out.
But you also can’t go wrong with seeking out community managers on LinkedIn. They tend to be an active, outgoing demographic that tends to post and comment on each other’s contributions frequently.
Proactively seek out community manager talent
In addition to searching for profiles, you might also scan who is using the hashtags for #onlinecommunities and #communitymanager which tend to get some of the highest volume use.
I spent many years in recruiting before finding my true calling as a community professional. I far prefer actively seeking out job candidates over posting a job and praying that someone will respond. Active outreach is far more likely to net you people who are going to be a fit for the job.
How should I evaluate a community manager’s resumé?
Community management is a new professional role, relatively speaking. You can and will find community managers with 15 years of experience, but with demand for candidates being what it is, I would not dismiss the resumé of a job seeker with considerably less experience.
In addition, because community managers often enter the profession as a side gig or volunteer, they may not be able to boast big budget communities.
Instead, I would recommend looking at what they were able to accomplish with the resources at hand. Growing a community from zero members is a good enough reason to interview someone, because it is incredibly challenging. Obviously community managers like these are engaged in the hard work of reaching out and meeting a lot of new people.
Here are some other elements of the community manager’s resume to which I might pay special attention:
Contact information includes a LinkedIn profile. The community profession is a highly public-facing role, so it is not unreasonable to expect that someone you are hiring has a LinkedIn profile. Many community professionals are also active on Twitter and Instagram, so it’s worth checking multiple platforms for what they’ve got to say.
While I would not discount someone from consideration out of hand for not having a profile, it would be a flag for me, suggesting that I should dig into why. Community managers must be comfortable with visibility not only within the community platform itself but also on social media whence many community members tend to be drawn.
Empathic Professional Summary. A critical characteristic for hiring any community professional, in my opinion, is empathy. If the summary does not demonstrate even a glimmer of understanding of what I want or am looking for, if the summary has not clearly been shaped towards my specific job opportunity, then I am likely to drop that resumé into the “B” pile.
Key Accomplishments are quantified. I tend to look at all resumés this way. While it’s fine to have accomplishments that indicate goodwill, interest, and creativity on the job, the real meat of any position listed on a resumé is the hard numbers. It’s information that is verifiable, specific, and grounded. A resumé built around vague generalities or described duties isn’t going to be compelling.
Commitment to ongoing self-education. There isn’t to my knowledge a recognized degree program anywhere for community management. However, there are many online courses and certifications for community management, not to mention a host of related learning opportunities that demonstrate a community manager’s commitment to learning and self-improvement.
Evidence of outside interests. Community management is a high-burnout career. The tendency to monitor the community at all hours to welcome newcomers, respond to posts, and deal with problems is a source of stress, frustration, and exhaustion.
Moreso than other resumés, I tend to look for some outside interests to indicate that the community professional we might hire has a release valve, a creative outlet, some means to relax and unplug from the daily chase of the job.
Download the traits of successful community managers infographic
What should I ask about when interviewing a community manager?
Most job seekers today are prepared to answer behavioral interview questions. Hearing some version of “Tell me about a time when…” and they will launch into a comfortable narrative that shows them in the best possible light.
Needless to say, I try to avoid any combination of those trigger words. Instead, I try to focus early in the interview on making the interviewee comfortable. I will usually ask some version of: I’d love to hear about your favorite project you’ve worked on.
Most people like to talk about their successes and this is a chance to dig in and understand more about how the person you’re thinking of hiring operates on the job. Listen for:
Challenges encountered and how the candidate got around them
Quantified results of the project
How they worked with allies, especially across the organization’s departments
How they interacted with leadership
How they worked through or around difficult people
What the long-term results were
What you learned or might do differently
Listen especially for resentments and frustrations. If these came up on a favorite project, it might be a warning sign. It is certainly a reason to try to dig more deeply into the situation.
Next, turn to the more difficult second scenario: Okay what was your least favorite or most difficult project? You can apply the same questions and listen for consistencies and differences in the response.
Should the community manager role be remote, in-office, or a hybrid?
You may have difficulty attracting community professionals at this time, if some version of hybrid work isn’t on the table. Like about 75% of post-pandemic employees, they are looking to work from home at least two days per week.
Community professional roles are increasingly offered as a nearly 100% remote work position. Unless your organization has some deeply embedded need to see someone in person, I would not suggest requiring in-person attendance at the company any more often than absolutely necessary, a few times a year, maybe.
The nature of the community management role is well-positioned for remote or hybrid work. Community professionals, regardless of age demographic, are de facto digital natives who naturally use web-based tools to communicate effectively. The work of a community manager is most often autonomous and outwardly focused on community members, and internal meetings can comfortably be handled with Zoom, Teams, Slack, or similar collaboration tools.
How do I onboard our new community manager?
Congratulations! You’ve just hired a community professional to run your online community. Is there anything special you ought to know about how best to get your new colleague up to speed?
It’s likely that getting your community manager into systems will be easy. Again, they all tend to be digital natives at heart. But they will need to get quickly at the tools you’ve set aside for the community itself. They’ll need administrative access to the platform along with any related tools for automation and analytics that you have set up.
Also, it will be important to get them involved with the community strategy as quickly as possible. Although you may have a wickedly smart strategy put together, you’ve hired this new community manager not merely to execute on a plan, but also to bring their unique insights, perspectives, and experiences to the work.
If the community strategy hasn’t yet been built or is still in process, your timing is perfect.
If they are coming late to the party, it will be important for them to see all of the necessary documentation and get some time with each of the key stakeholders who shaped the strategy for some one-on-one conversation.
Finally, community professionals need to be good at navigating the organization. They work with a variety of stakeholders from multiple departments. They often need to be a part of staff meetings in order to provide insights and inspiration to internal teams. For this reason, you should spend extra time making sure that your new community manager has a good map of the organization’s departments, leadership, and those who are perceived at least as the greatest proponents (or detractors) of the community.
What department should community fall under?
Your organization may already have a good idea about where the community manager role will fall. The answer to this question may have to do with whoever the executive champion for your online community happens to be.
According to the CMX 2022 Community Industry Report, the top departments where community teams reside tend to be:
Marketing 28%
Community 22% (i.e., their own dedicated department)
Customer success 8%
Product 6%
Customer support 5%
Communications 4%
Engineering 3%
Human Resources 1%
As an aside, I was personally a little surprised (and pleased) by how many organizations have set up a dedicated community department. To me, it is an indication of how the role has risen in the estimation of organizational leadership, especially within the past several years.
How will the community manager role be kept accountable?
Community professionals need to be accountable in several ways.
As the representative of your organization, the community professional is accountable to the members of your community. A good community manager will be responsive to inquiries, attentive to problems with the functionality of the online platform, encouraging when it comes to new ideas, and a connector of people and ideas. Not everyone needs to be happy with the community manager (some will never be happy!), but your membership out to view him or her as a facilitator who is accessible, friendly, and helpful.
You can learn how your community feels about the community manger rather easily. Check out how your community members respond to the community manager’s posts. Do they like the post? Do they comment? Are the comments generally supportive?
Second, your community manager has internal accountability to stakeholders from leadership and across relevant departments in the organization. Is the community manager able to offer supportive metrics that demonstrate the achievement of business objectives? Check with department leaders who interact with the community manager to find out if he or she is sharing relevant information and opportunities from the community.
What kind of career path are community managers looking for?
Managing online communities is a frontline role. The experience gained here can lead to career growth in a variety of directions. Within the community professional sphere, however, a community manager may advance to titles like:
Senior Community Manager
Director or Head of Community
Community Strategist
Chief Community Officer (a new role to be sure, but one that’s on the lips of man community pros these days)
Beyond the community professional space, it is possible that someone starting in community could end up a Chief People Officer, a VP of Customer Experience, or another senior executive role. The sky is the limit.
Conclusion
A part-timer is better than no community manager at all but this is an increasingly critical role for organizations of all stripes.
Assuming that your focus is on Lifetime Customer Value (LCV) you need a team that serves customers across their lifetime journey instead of just at the acquisition stage. Online communities are naturally aligned to LCV. Creating a community that isn’t staffed by a community manager at all is a recipe for disaster and signals a lack of commitment to a positive customer experience.
Looking for more help hiring a community manager? I’d be happy to speak with you further. Let’s set up a time to talk.
