advertising-hiring

The saved excerpt is a snapshot from when this skill was listed. The external source remains the complete and most current version.

---
name: advertising-hiring
description: Build the complete hiring packet for a paid-advertising role - the rung decision (media buyer vs performance marketer vs growth marketer; creative strategist is its own role), an outcome scorecard, a 2-3 round interview loop with a judgment-first question bank, a time-boxed in-interview work sample, and a 30-60-90 ramp with staged spend authority. For the marketing leader or founder recruiting. Use for "hire a media buyer", "interview questions for a performance marketer", "paid media work sample", "scorecard for our first ad hire", or "30-60-90 for a new paid media hire". Does not source candidates, post jobs, run applicant tracking, or write offers, and does not cover the candidate side - that is the sibling mbfinotti/advertising-skills@advertising-career.
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: Maya-Beth Finotti
  version: "1.4.9"
---

# Advertising Hiring

Build the packet a marketing leader needs to recruit a paid-advertising hire: role scoping, interview loop and scorecard, work sample, and a ramp plan with staged spend authority. Scoping comes first: the field's own hiring managers trace mis-hires to it, not to interviewing technique - Duane Brown (Take Some Risk): "Bad hires are the results of bad job descriptions or interviews"; Constant Hire: "a mis-hire is usually a scoping [error]."

Titles blur, but a real functional ladder sits underneath them, each rung adding scope over the one below:

- Media buyer: channel execution.
- Performance marketer: adds funnel strategy, creative testing, measurement, business outcome.
- Growth marketer: the whole system, including conversion and lifecycle.
- Creative strategist: a separate role bridging creative and buying, not a senior buyer.

The frame borrows the scorecard tradition popularized by Geoff Smart and Randy Street's _Who_: mission, ranked outcomes, then competencies, all defined before anyone is evaluated.

This is the hirer's side only: it does not source candidates, post jobs, run applicant tracking, or write offer letters, and anything touching compensation terms, contracts, or employment law needs HR/legal review. It quotes published salary bands with source and date as scoping input, always labelled directional. The candidate side - breaking into and progressing in paid media - is the mirror-image sibling `mbfinotti/advertising-skills@advertising-career`; if the person you are talking to turns out to be a candidate, route them there.

## Interview

Ask before designing. One question per message; offer multiple-choice answers where possible. Skip anything already answered.

- What stage and size is the company? (a) under 15 people / pre-launch, (b) 15-150, (c) 150+, (d) an agency hiring for its own bench.
- Is this the first dedicated paid-media hire, or an addition to an existing team? If existing: who is on it and which channels do they own?
- Which paid channels are live or planned? (a) one, (b) two, (c) three or more, (d) none live yet.
- What monthly ad budget will this hire manage - now and in 12 months? (a) under $10k, (b) $10-50k, (c) $50-250k, (d) $250k+.
- What segment? (a) B2C / DTC ecommerce, (b) B2B, (c) app or marketplace, (d) mixed.
- Is this an in-house brand-side hire or an agency-side one - and does your candidate pool skew agency-trained or brand-trained?
- How trustworthy is measurement today - conversion tracking validated, platform numbers reconciled against backend revenue? (a) yes, (b) partly, (c) no, (d) unknown.
- Who is on the interview panel, and how many rounds can you realistically run?
- By what date must this seat be producing? (a) inside a month, (b) this quarter, (c) no fixed date. A hard date promotes the options that cover the channels this week - a retained agency or a freelancer bridging while you hire - and demotes anything that adds an interview round.
- Do you want a one-off fix for the spend running today, or a capability that compounds? A one-off answer promotes outside help and a contrac