Hiring Your First Marketing Person? Decide What You Need Them to Own

You need help with marketing. One applicant runs paid ads. Another makes excellent videos. A third has managed campaigns across several channels. Which one should you interview?

First decide what the person will own: choosing a way to reach customers, producing agreed material or improving something that already works. Those jobs need different evidence. “Handle our marketing” is not enough to compare the resumes.

A small-retailer discussion on Reddit captures this problem: the owner has products, customers and online channels, but needs help deciding priorities rather than simply making more posts. It is an individual account, not a survey or a Resume Ranker customer story.

Pick the problem before the title

Complete this sentence: “We need this person because, at the moment, ____.”

If the answer is “we don't know which customers or offer to focus on,” the job includes investigation and choices. If it is “we know what to publish but never get it finished,” the gap is production. If it is “our ads generate enquiries but nobody has time to manage them,” you have a more defined channel to hand over.

O*NET's marketing-specialist occupation includes customer and competitor research, reporting findings and assessing marketing effectiveness. That breadth is useful context, not a checklist of everything one small-business hire must do.

The following briefs are fictional examples. They are alternatives, not three roles to squeeze into one vacancy.

Brief one: work out how to bring in suitable enquiries

A local service business gets most work through the owner and word of mouth. It wants a more deliberate way to attract the kinds of customers it can serve profitably. No channel has yet been established as the answer.

The brief: understand current customers and how they find the business, identify one promising approach, organise a bounded test and explain what the results do and do not show. The owner will provide customer access, service knowledge and spending approval. The new person does not own closing every sale.

Look for resume evidence of customer research, choosing between options, running a test and changing course after reviewing results. A list of platforms or a promise to “grow the brand” leaves the key work unclear.

Ask: “Tell me about a time you had to choose what to try before you had a reliable marketing channel. What information did you use, what did you personally do and what changed your mind?”

This could suit a generalist with relevant hands-on work. If you only need a defined diagnosis and plan, consider whether a scoped consultant engagement answers the need before creating an ongoing employee role. A title alone does not tell you whether someone will advise, execute or do both.

Brief two: make the agreed content happen

A retailer already knows its customers and promotion calendar. The owner approves offers, but newsletters, product photographs and social posts keep slipping.

The brief: turn approved offers into usable copy and creative material, maintain a realistic schedule, coordinate approvals and report what was published and how it performed. The owner keeps pricing and marketing direction.

Look for personal production work and delivery responsibility: writing, editing, organising assets, handling feedback and publishing. Ask to discuss a work example the applicant is permitted to share, including what other people contributed. A polished team portfolio does not establish which parts they made.

Ask: “Walk me through one piece from the brief to publication. What did you create, who approved it and what did you do when the deadline or feedback changed?”

A content coordinator or producer may be more relevant than a strategist who mainly directs other people. If the recurring gap is only product photography or occasional design, a specialist service may be enough. Define the deliverable and who will coordinate it.

Brief three: run and improve an established channel

A business already uses paid search to generate enquiries. It has records of spending and leads, but the owner can no longer manage the day-to-day work.

The brief: maintain the campaigns, check the path from ad to enquiry, work within agreed spending limits and report lead quality as well as volume. The owner or sales team must supply information about which enquiries become suitable customers.

Look for experience managing the relevant channel, explaining measurement and making changes within a budget. Clarify whether the applicant operated the campaigns or received reports from an agency.

Ask: “Choose one result on your resume. What counted as a conversion, what period and spending did it cover, and how did you check whether the enquiries were useful?”

“Reduced cost per lead” needs that context. Fewer expensive but relevant enquiries may serve the business better than many cheap enquiries it cannot use. The resume figure alone cannot settle that comparison.

Compare the evidence, not the job titles

Use the brief you selected to decide what deserves a closer look:

An agency background is neither an automatic advantage nor a reason to reject someone. Ask what resources they had. A person who directed designers, analysts and copywriters may need different support from someone who produced the work themselves.

Likewise, don't quietly demand expertise in every channel. If you discover an extra requirement, decide whether it belongs in the role and reconsider all affected applicants consistently.

Finish this brief before opening the PDF pile

The business problem we need help with:
The customers and offer we currently understand:
The work this person will own:
The decisions the owner will keep:
The budget, access and support available:
The current baseline, or how we will establish it:
What we will review together after the first month:
What this role will not be responsible for:

The first review need not promise a revenue increase in a month. It can check whether agreed material shipped, measurement was made usable or a sensible test was completed. Match the expectation to the brief and the time needed to observe results.

Resume Ranker can review a batch of PDF resumes against that job description and your written criteria. Use the explanations to locate relevant experience, then check work examples and ask about personal contribution. It does not establish marketing effectiveness from a sales claim or replace portfolio review.

If you're still trying to combine unrelated duties, the same-resumes, different-job example shows why the shortlist changes when the work changes. If the real need is someone to approach prospects and close business, start with the first-salesperson guide instead.