You hire a marketing leader without a recruiting team by narrowing the role before you go to market rather than after. Most searches that stall at this size are not sourcing problems — they are definition problems. The job description asks for four people in one, so every real candidate looks like a compromise and the process quietly resets every few weeks. Decide the two outcomes the hire owns in their first year, price the role against those two outcomes, and the search gets dramatically shorter.
Why do searches stall at companies with no talent team?
Because nobody owns the search. It lands on a founder, a CFO, or an HR generalist who already has a full-time job, and a search is not a task — it is a schedule. Candidates go cold in days, not weeks. The pattern is almost always the same: a burst of activity, twenty applicants reviewed, three conversations, then two weeks of silence while the business gets on with business. By the time someone returns to it, the best two people have accepted something else, and the search restarts from a colder market with a slightly rewritten job description.
What should you decide before you write the job description?
Three things, in this order. First, the two outcomes this person owns twelve months from now — not responsibilities, outcomes. Second, who they need to be better than, internally or in the market, to deliver those outcomes. Third, what happens to the rest of the work if this person does not do it: agency, contractor, existing team, or genuinely nothing. That third question is where most budget is saved, because it exposes the parts of the job description that were added out of hope rather than need.
How much of the role do you actually need?
Usually less than the posting says. Senior marketing and creative job descriptions tend to bundle four disciplines into one hire because the business is not sure which one it needs. The result is a search for a person who does not exist, at a salary that would have covered a specialist plus support.
| What the posting says | What it usually bundles | What the business usually needs |
|---|---|---|
| Full-stack marketer | Brand, demand generation, content, marketing operations | One demand-generation owner, with an agency or freelancer for content |
| Head of Growth | Paid acquisition, lifecycle, analytics, product experimentation | A paid-acquisition specialist first, then analytics once spend justifies it |
| Creative Director | Art direction, design execution, copy, production management | An art director with a strong freelance bench, not a full studio hire |
| Marketing Manager, all-rounder | Everything the founder no longer wants to do | A clear first hire in the single channel that is already working |
| VP Marketing, early stage | Strategy, team building, plus hands-on execution | A senior individual contributor now, a VP after the motion is proven |
Who should run the search when nobody owns recruiting?
Someone whose calendar the search actually sits on. That can be an internal owner with genuinely protected time each week, or an external partner engaged to run it end to end. What does not work is distributing it across three busy people, because a search dies in the gaps between them. If you keep it internal, name one owner, block the time, and agree in advance how fast you will move between stages. Speed is not a nicety in a senior search — it is most of the advantage a smaller company has.
How long should a senior search take?
Plan for the market work to take weeks and for your own process to be the variable you control. The part that is genuinely slow is reaching people who are not looking and giving them a reason to have a first conversation. The part that is usually slower than it should be is everything after that: scheduling, internal alignment, and the decision itself. When a search runs long, the cause is more often the second than the first.
Retained or contingent?
Contingent search is paid on placement, so you carry no cost until someone starts, and you can run more than one firm at a time. Retained search is a committed engagement, funded in stages, and the market is worked systematically rather than opportunistically. Retained is the right structure for leadership hires, confidential replacements, and any role where you need the search documented and the whole market covered rather than the fastest available candidates. Neither is virtuous. They buy different things.