Recruiters’ Expectations Are Killing Marketers

Image courtesy of @nikkotations via Unsplash.

A recruiter sent me a role the other day for a Marketing Manager at an established company.

The job description was two pages of succinct, bullet-pointed responsibilities, with no mention of employee benefits besides a measly salary.

The job description seemed to cover every single aspect of marketing in detail, requiring skills that are beyond that of a marketer, such as graphic design, videography, photography, product management and development, and sales.

The problem is that businesses and recruiters don’t seem to understand what marketing is, so they justify that all of the ‘odd jobs’ are lumped in as part of a general marketing role.

The responsibilities listed included:

• Managing the marketing budget

• Organising and designing trade show stands

• Designing and printing promotional materials

• Reporting

• Product development

• PR and advertising

• Photography (to a high standard)

• Organising an industry awards ceremony

• Managing all web content, including product information

• Copywriting weekly blogs and emails

• Social media management

• Competitor analyses

• Videography (to a high standard)

• Organising and attending customer meetings

• Manage licensing agreements

• Internal marketing communications

… and that’s not even the full list.

The one benefit they did mention was that the office makes ‘lovely cups of tea’ — #WorkPerks.

There seems to be a disconnect between what marketing covers (which is, admittedly, a wide range of responsibilities) and what one person can do — and do well.

Coupled with the fact that the role was advertising as £24–26k per annum, I don’t think I’ll be leaping to get my CV ready.

Image courtesy of @deadqueenines via Unsplash.

Stop Searching for the Marketing Unicorn

I take pride in my work as a marketer, and I want to do my job well.

When recruiters are hiring new marketing roles, they seem to simply run a quick Google search of ‘what is marketing’, and copy out every single responsibility listed, with no consideration of the person they’re hiring.

When marketing is slap-dash, it’s not as effective— it’s as simple as that.

You can’t expect the world from one marketer.

While I understand that a small business or start-up may not have the funds to recruit an entire marketing team in the beginning, don’t ask too much of one person.

If you truly want your marketing to make a difference and your business to succeed and grow, you need to invest in your brand.

Hire freelance copywriters, photographers, graphics designers, videographers… those who studied at their craft, and can prove themselves.

Those people are not marketers, and you wouldn’t expect them to be, just like you shouldn’t expect a marketer to be an adept photographer as a prerequisite.

Plus, if you have a marketer who’s clearly taking on too much responsibility, you’ll burn them out, too.

A burn-out will mean that the work they produce won’t be up to their usual standard, and it’s terrible for their mental health, so they may even end up leaving soon after starting.

You can’t have one marketer do everything (and do it all to a high standard), and you can’t offer them pennies in exchange for their mental health and physical burnout.

Consider what your product or service actually needs to market it, and then add some ‘desirables’ on top of that, but don’t include those as part of the ‘essentials’ of the role — they should only be ‘desirables’.

A marketer who is an adept photographer is not likely to be equally as skilled in copywriting, or events management.

A marketer who can design high-quality graphics isn’t likely to be a PR-wizard with connections at every major publication.

You’re hiring a marketer, not a photographer, events manager, videographer, graphic designer, PR manager, customer service officer.

Your marketer is a human being, with human limitations, the need for their own personal time, without stressing about every element of your business that remotely relates to marketing.

The issue is that a lot of these businesses hiring for new marketing roles don’t know what they need at the early stages.

So instead of planning which elements of marketing they need at the developmental stages of their business, they list every possible skill a marketer could have — throwing it at a wall and seeing what sticks.

Unfortunately, this deters marketers from applying for their roles and scares away the talent that could help make their business successful.

If you’re a startup, or an established business looking to hire a new marketing role, take time to plan what you need, not what you want.

Stop searching for the marketing unicorn — they don’t exist.

Start looking for your Marketing Manager.