We design the roles, run the hires, and coach the people, so the team outlasts us.
Most first marketing hires fail because the founder wrote the job ad, not because the candidate was bad. The story repeats across Australian SMEs: a head of marketing hired at $120,000, who turns out to be a very good social media manager.
The candidate did nothing wrong. The role was designed wrong.
The mismatch usually surfaces around month six, after the salary, the super, the recruiter fee, and two quarters of drift. By then the conversation is about the person, when it should be about the brief they were hired against.
Founders hire for the channel that is currently on fire rather than the function the business needs. Titles inflate on both sides of the table. And when the interviewer is not a marketer, nobody in the room can test the candidate's actual judgement, so the hire gets made on confidence and portfolio polish.
Marketing titles are the least standardised in business. One company's growth lead is another's marketing coordinator on double the salary. Without someone who has run the discipline sitting in the process, you are buying a title and hoping.
Design the role, then hire against it.
Team architecture
Which roles the business needs, in what order, and whether the stage calls for a generalist or a specialist.
Job scorecards
Measurable outcomes written down before anyone applies, so success in the role is defined rather than discovered.
Sourcing and interview support
We help write the ad, work the shortlist, and bring the technical questions that separate operators from titles.
Candidate assessment
Every shortlist is assessed by someone who has done the job being hired for, not by someone reading a portfolio.
Ninety-day onboarding plans
Each hire ramps against a written plan with milestones, so month three is a review rather than a guess.
Coaching and restructures
Role clarity, performance expectations, and mentoring the promising mid-level marketer into a leader. Sometimes the answer is coaching, sometimes a different org chart. We put the case in writing either way.
The hiring sequence, by stage.
The sequence matters more than the individual hires. Getting it out of order is how a company ends up with a brand designer and no one who can read a funnel.
One T-shaped generalist, plus agencies
Someone who can run your two or three proven channels and manage the partners around them. A specialist this early becomes expensive and bored.
Specialists in the channels you have proven
Hired in order of revenue contribution. Do not hire a content lead to find out whether content works.
A leadership layer
So the specialists stop reporting to the founder, and the function has someone accountable for the whole number.
The same discipline applies to restructures.
Role clarity, performance expectations, mentoring the promising mid-level marketer into a leader, and the honest conversation when the team's shape no longer matches the business. Sometimes the answer is coaching. Sometimes it is a different org chart. We put the case in writing either way.
The proof
The teams behind ezyCollect's ARR growth and Cohen Handler's national expansion were not inherited; they were designed, hired, and coached along the way. The structures held after the engagements ended, which is the only test that counts. Both are written up in the case studies.
Marketing hiring questions, answered.
Who should be my first marketing hire?
A T-shaped generalist who can run your two or three proven channels and manage agency partners, typically at marketing manager level. Hire specialists after the generalist proves which channels deserve them.
How much does a marketing manager cost in Australia?
Expect $90,000 to $130,000 base for a capable marketing manager, before super, and more in Sydney. The bigger cost is a mis-hire: salary plus recruiter fees plus six months of lost momentum routinely exceeds $100,000.
How do I interview a marketing candidate when I am not a marketer?
Test judgement, since you cannot test craft: ask them to critique your current marketing, walk through a campaign that failed, and explain what they would measure in their first month. Or bring in someone who has run the discipline to assess the shortlist.
Should I hire in-house or use an agency?
Agencies for channel execution you can brief clearly; in-house for anything needing daily context, speed, or ownership of the whole number. Most SMEs run best on a small internal core directing external specialists, which is a structure we also help govern through agency management.
How do I restructure an underperforming marketing team?
Diagnose before you cut: audit each role against measurable output, separate structure problems from people problems, and rewrite the org design before touching headcount. Most underperforming teams are capable people in badly designed roles.
What if we have no marketing structure at all yet?
Then the hire is not the first move. Building the system around it comes first: positioning, channels, budget, and reporting cadence. That is our build your marketing function engagement, and it makes the eventual hire smaller, later, and far more likely to stick.
Bring your draft job ad to the call.
We will tell you in thirty minutes which role you are actually hiring for, and it is usually a different one.