The First Marketing Hire Kit

Define your first marketer's role, test finalists with a paid take-home, ask questions tied to each skill and plan the first 90 days. Free Word template.

Word document · Free

What this resource helps you do

Write the job down before you interview, test every finalist the same way, and decide on evidence: role scorecard, paid take-home, interview questions and a first-90-days plan.

Get the kit from AAJ's free marketing templates library.

Who the First Marketing Hire Kit is for

The First Marketing Hire Kit is a free Word template for founders hiring their first marketer, from seed to Series B. It helps you write the job down before you interview, test every finalist the same way, and decide on evidence rather than on how the panel felt. It is the working file for my post on your first marketing hire.

In my view, most first-hire mistakes come from hiring before you know what the job is: a senior leader who expects a team and a budget that do not exist, or a junior coordinator who expects direction nobody has time to give. The kit starts by making you write the job down.

What the kit contains

A signals check. Retention in one segment, one channel that works, and founder time as the constraint. If one is missing, a hire will not fix it.
A role scorecard. What the hire must own in months 1 to 6, the deep skill behind the channel that already brings in customers, and up to seven competencies with weights, bars and no more than four must-haves.
A rating sheet and decision table. Ratings from 1 to 4 with no middle, and an evidence note for every rating: what the candidate said or did.
A paid take-home brief with a five-criterion rubric tied to the competencies, written before any answers are read.
Seventeen interview questions across a founder screen, a practitioner deep-dive, the take-home review and reference calls. Each is tied to a competency, with what to listen for and the red flag.
A first-90-days plan that follows AAJ's Diagnose, Design, Execute method: learn, fix the foundations, then grow one channel, with day-90 targets agreed before the candidate signs.
An offer checklist of fourteen checks.

How the decision works

A must-have below its bar, with the panel agreeing, is a no-hire whatever the total. A must-have with no evidenced rating, or with interviewers two or more points apart, needs more evidence. Then the weighted score is read against a hire line of 3.0. A rating with no evidence note does not count. These are AAJ's rules, not research findings, and you can change them before the first interview. If nobody clears the bar, re-open the search rather than lower it. The free first-marketing-hire agent skill computes the table from your ratings.

What it does not do

The kit contains no salary figures. Set pay from public wage data for where the person will work, such as the US Bureau of Labor Statistics state and area wage data, adjusted for your stage. It is not legal, tax or employment advice. Interview-question limits, pay-range disclosure, reference and background checks, and how to pay a candidate for a take-home all differ by state and country, so check them with counsel. The worked example, Example Co., is fictional.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should the take-home task be paid?

Yes. I would not ask anyone to do unpaid work on a real problem. Pay every finalist the same fee, cap the task in hours, and say in writing who owns the work. How you pay someone who is not yet an employee is a tax and employment question, so check it with your accountant or counsel.

Does the kit include salary benchmarks?

No. Set cash pay from public wage data for where the person will work, such as the US Bureau of Labor Statistics state and area wage data, adjusted for your stage. My post on the first marketing hire covers the occupations that bracket the role, with sources.

How many must-haves should a first marketing hire have?

Four or fewer: the deep skill behind the channel that already works, and the few basics the first six months cannot do without. More than that is a search for someone who does not exist.

What if two interviewers disagree about a candidate?

If they are two or more points apart on one competency, they saw different people. Put them in one room with their evidence notes before anyone decides. On a must-have, the kit's call is more evidence, not hire or no hire.

Is the template free, and what format is it?

Free. It is a Word .docx you download directly from the page, and it opens in Google Docs.