Stop Hiring One Person to Do Five Jobs
Stop Hiring One Person to Do Five Jobs (Your Brand Will Thank You)
We have a bit of a habit at Lately: scrolling local job boards to see how businesses are hiring for marketing. Call it professional curiosity. 👀
And almost every week, the same posting shows up wearing a slightly different outfit:
"Marketing Coordinator / Social Media Expert — $19–23/hour"
Must be skilled in: paid ads, SEO, content strategy, graphic design, video shooting and editing, community management, monthly reporting… and helping out at the front desk when things get busy. ☕
Every time we see it, we have the same reaction:
That's not a job posting. That's an org chart.
Let's actually count the jobs
Break that listing down and here's what's really being asked for:
A paid ads specialist — someone who lives inside ad platforms, understands bidding, audiences, and creative testing, and knows when a campaign is quietly burning money
An SEO strategist — keyword research, content planning, technical know-how, and the patience to play a long game
A social media manager — strategy, calendars, captions, community replies, trend-spotting
A videographer — lighting, framing, audio, directing people who hate being on camera
A video editor + designer — the post-production magic that makes everything above actually look good
That's five distinct careers. People spend years getting genuinely good at just one of them.
And this listing wants all five… in one person… at an hourly rate that usually attracts someone in their first year or two out of school.
This is not about the applicant
Let's be really clear, because this part matters: none of this is a knock on the junior marketer who applies. Everyone in this industry started somewhere, and "new" is not a character flaw — it's just a stage. Some of the most creative, plugged-in people we know are early in their careers.
The problem isn't the person. The problem is the math.
No one — junior or senior — can do five specialist jobs well at the same time. What actually happens is that everything gets done at about 40%, the person burns out, and 18 months later the business is writing the exact same job posting again. (And now there's a half-finished content calendar and a Canva account nobody has the password to.)
Here's the question worth sitting with
Your brand is often the first thing a potential customer ever experiences. Before they call you, walk in, or book with you — they've seen your ads, your posts, your reviews, your website.
So the honest question is: why would you hand that entire first impression to one stretched-thin person and call it a strategy?
Most businesses would never run their operations that way. One person doing five jobs isn't a team — it's a single point of failure.
The part that's changed (and why this posting keeps aging badly)
Here's the thing these listings haven't caught up with: the "full-time generalist or nothing" era is over.
Boutique agencies — hi, that's us 👋 — exist precisely to solve this. Instead of one overwhelmed hire, you get a small team where each of those five jobs is done by someone who actually specializes in it. Someone whose whole day is ads. Someone whose whole day is content. Someone who knows what's trending this week, not what was trending when the job posting was written.
And here's the kicker: a boutique team often costs less than one full-time salary plus benefits — without the recruiting, training, turnover, or "who's covering social while they're on vacation?" scramble.
To be fair: in-house isn't wrong
We're not here to tell you never to hire internally. In-house marketers can be fantastic — when the role is scoped like a real job. One focus. Clear goals. Support around them.
What we are saying is this:
Stop hiring one person to be five people. Your brand deserves a team, not a unicorn. 🦄
Thinking about what outsourced marketing could look like for your business? Book a call with us — we'll give you an honest read on whether an agency, an in-house hire, or a mix is actually right for you.
