Why Job Ads Like This Are Damaging The Digital Marketing Industry

2 min read
We read a job ad for a 'Digital Marketing Manager' today and laughed.
Not in a good way.

'This needed to be shared', we immediately thought.
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We've written at length about why true Digital Marketing Specialists don't exist and how important it is to understand the real scope of digital marketing when hiring and building your digital marketing team.

This is why a job ad that lists an exhaustive range of digital marketing skills as a requirement attached to a mediocre salary package does 2 potentially damaging things:

1. Devalues Digital Marketing Skills in general
2. Risks spreading and creating a precedent that the expectations are acceptable and/or reasonable

To someone who has been in the industry for 15+ years, it can sometimes feel a bit like this is the expectation of what's possible:

We won't name the employer or post the full ad, but here is an excerpt of the listed abilities required:

​Key Abilities

• Google adwords expert.
• Understanding of Influencer marketing.
• Social Media Marketing.
• SEO.
• Video creating and editing.
• Photography and editing.
• Create advert campaigns inline with the company style guide.
• Blog writing and content creation.
• Measuring and reporting on the performance of all digital marketing campaigns.
• Design, build and maintain our social media presence.
• Identify trends and insights, and optimise spend and performance based on the insights.
• Plan, execute, and measure experiments and split conversion tests.
• Evaluate emerging technologies. Provide thought leadership and perspective for adoption where appropriate.
• Utilise strong analytical ability to evaluate end-to-end customer experience across multiple channels and customer touch points.

The Salary Expectation?

AUD $40,000 - $49,999 plus super*

In Conclusion

We hope this serves as an education piece for businesses to consider when hiring for digital marketing skills.

For job seekers in the digital space, understand that digital marketing knowledge gaps exist and most importantly, don't underestimate your worth.

There are many salary reports online with useful data. One tool (for Australia employees) Hudson's salary calculator gives up to date salary information to help you get a better understanding of what you're really worth.

* For a comparison, 'Digital Campaign Manager' in Perth is listed in Hudson's calculator as AUD $85,000-120,000 

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