A big area of head scratching comes when we see job postings in the marketing industry for in house marketing positions. Some are so vague as to not offer much insight into the actual position, or so specific that the pool of candidates in both cases likely don’t have all the skills necessary. More amazing, we see job postings that basically list ALL marketing expertise all rolled into one person.

They need skills ranging from design and web develop- ment to being an expert in marketing strategy, writing, social and even advertising strategy. Like unicorns, this is going to be a very challenging expedition. Most recently when I saw the All In One job posting as I like to call these, the salary was so absurdly low that even if someone did possess all those skills, they are not going to be bringing them to you “industrial B2B manufacturing job where you will work under tight deadlines and close scrutiny (really, that’s what it said, sounds like a fun job, right) for the whopping salary of $40K. They wanted someone with 10+ years of experience as well – sounds like a dream job. High skill with PowerPoint was also listed, and I know that with my 10+ years of experience, I would love nothing more than be making PowerPoint presentations for the sales team all day. Refer back to the revolving door, even if you did find this person, the job sounds truly awful.

Best of luck with that unicorn hunt.

Great creatives aren’t necessary great writers. Great writers aren’t necessary great project managers. Web designers are likely not good publicists. In all my years in the industry, I have never seen a single person with high proficiency in EVERY aspect of marketing.

With a good agency that offers comprehensive and integrated services, you will get all this wide range of expertise and skills, with folks that specialize and are experts in the myriad of disciplines in the marketing field. And, aside from clients being the occasional pain in the butt, no type of business is viewed as an awful gig – the agency is paid to objectively provide their best effort and give great work. No office politics. No “I hate my job,” nor problems with the boss or supervi- sor. The agency will give a wide range of expertise and bring the exact mix to the table to accomplish what needs to be done – from executive level marketing strategy to yes, making great PowerPoint presentations.

The best part is a good agency partner will provide project management acumen, great content, creative and the ability to be proactive and resourceful in finding solutions to a client challenge. They will offer options and suggestions and perhaps most importantly, provide honest feedback if they believe something won’t work or doesn’t look or sound right. They also have tremendous collective resources, and an agency can work more than 40 hours/week. Again, back to that dream job referenced earlier, folks with 10+ years of experience are not looking to do tactical work for 40+ hours/week and they are most certainly not looking to work 50+ hours/week for that type of salary. Not that it ever was realistic, but in this day and age, very few amazingly talented folks are even going to consider that gig – but you could have an entire team of amazingly talented folks. In my eyes, it’s a no brainer. You manage, the agency gets it done – no complaining, just doing. No vacation time. Just objec- tive expertise offering a team of experts that will provide the ever changing strategies, tactics and executions a business needs to be successful.