You Hired Someone. Now What the Fuck?

HIRING SOMEONE IS NOT THE SAME AS KNOWING WHAT YOU NEED THEM TO DO.

A business decides it needs another employee.

It posts a job, interviews candidates, negotiates compensation, and eventually hires someone.

Congratulations. You now have another person on payroll.

What the fuck are they supposed to accomplish?

That question should have been answered before the job was posted.

A marketing director. An operations manager. An administrative assistant. A social media manager. A project coordinator.

Those are titles.

They do not establish the business need, the workload, the authority, the resources, or the result.

And they definitely do not repair a company that still has no idea who is responsible for what.

Start With the Fucking Work.

What needs to change? What expertise does it require? How much work is involved? How often does it recur? Who makes the decisions? What should the business possess when the assignment is complete?

This is the logic of job analysis: connect the tasks to the capabilities needed to perform them. The U.S. Office of Personnel Management describes that connection as the foundation for assessment and selection. Its guidance concerns federal hiring, but the operating question applies well beyond government. [1]

What are you selecting someone to do?

The answer might support a continuing employee, a genuinely time-limited position, temporary capacity, an outside specialist, or an agency with several capabilities.

It might also reveal that you need to stop routing every decision through three people who never agree.

Another person cannot approve the thing you refuse to decide.

The work should inform the staffing structure. The staffing structure should not invent the work.

That doesn't mean management has to know every technical answer before hiring expertise. It means management needs to know why it is buying the expertise. We will come back to that distinction.

The Marketing Director Who Was Hired to Be an Entire Department.

Suppose a company says it needs a marketing director.

Does it need someone to set strategy and manage specialists? A paid-media operator? A designer? A writer? A CRM administrator? A web producer? An analyst? An event coordinator? A photographer?

Or does it want one person to do all of those jobs while attending every meeting and explaining why revenue did not immediately improve?

I have worked across strategy, paid acquisition, reporting, CRM and process design, search visibility, content, websites, technical coordination, and business-development support.

That range taught me something:

Related functions are not the same function.

A capable generalist can cover several of them. That does not make the person's time unlimited or every specialty interchangeable.

In a law-firm example, advertising performance has to connect to what happens after the inquiry: qualified calls, consultations, retained matters, and the costs of producing them.

If intake records sources inconsistently, the CRM contains years of conflicting entries, sales doesn't record outcomes, and management won't agree on what qualifies as an opportunity, a new advertising person inherits a measurement problem they cannot solve alone.

Now imagine the director is responsible for revenue but cannot access the CRM, change intake procedures, select vendors, approve creative, influence the budget, or obtain consistent reporting.

That is accountability theater.

The person does not need unrestricted control over the company. They need decisions they can make, cooperation they can rely on, and someone who resolves the conflicts they cannot resolve themselves.

If you want an executive result, decide what executive authority comes with it.

If you want an individual contributor, stop hiding an entire department inside one job description.

The CRM Cleanup That Pretended to Be a Permanent Function.

Consider a hypothetical company with years of inconsistent customer and referral records. This example illustrates a staffing decision; it is not an account of a particular employer or client.

Names are entered differently. Organizations and individual contacts are mixed together. Original sources, later interactions, and assigned account owners are treated as though they mean the same thing.

The reports disagree because the records do not follow a common structure.

Management sees the backlog and concludes that it needs a full-time employee.

Maybe it does.

First, separate two kinds of work.

Remediation: understand the existing records, define the structure, resolve duplicates and inconsistencies, preserve what can be verified, document what cannot, and repair the reporting.

Governance: decide who enters new information, what standards apply, who approves changes, and who checks whether the process still works.

The cleanup is a project.

Keeping the information usable is a continuing responsibility.

Those are not automatically the same job.

A specialist might perform the cleanup. An existing operations person with real capacity might own the ongoing process. Or the continuing volume and complexity might justify a dedicated employee.

You have to establish which situation you actually have.

And no, “clean the data” does not mean inventing a referral source because a required field is empty. Unknown information is still unknown information.

A prettier report built on invented certainty is another problem.

What Happens When the Employee Succeeds?

A company presents a position as ongoing.

The employee performs well. The backlog disappears. The systems are organized. The initial project is finished.

Then management looks around and decides there isn't enough work left.

Did the employee fail?

Or did management hire for a pile of unfinished work without asking what would remain when it was finished?

The employee did not create the planning failure by succeeding.

Business conditions can change. An ongoing position is not a promise that the market will remain the same forever. But uncertainty that management already knows about should not be hidden inside a reassuring job title.

For a hypothetical ninety-day assignment, keep two questions separate:

Did the person perform the agreed work competently?

Does the business have a continuing need for this role?

The answer can be yes to the first and no to the second.

That is a staffing conclusion. It is not automatically a performance conclusion.

Put Some Fucking Numbers Around the Decision.

Suppose management is considering a new ongoing position to address that CRM problem.

The first-year budget is $90,000 in salary plus $30,000 in other additional employment and setup costs: $120,000 total.

Those are invented figures. The extra $30,000 is an explicit assumption, not a standard percentage every employer should use.

Now suppose a properly scoped alternative costs $30,000 to complete the initial three-month cleanup and handoff, followed by $2,000 per month for the remaining nine months of ongoing administration.

That is $48,000 for the first year.

This is a hypothetical analysis based on an understanding of how systems work. It is a comparison of two assumed plans for the same defined need, not a claim that contractors are cheaper than employees.

Assume both budgets include the additional coordination, training, tools, applicable employment costs, and handoff work required for their respective plans. Assume both can legally and competently deliver the defined first-year cleanup and administration. Those conditions still need verification.

Equal defined scope does not establish equal long-term capability.

An employee may build knowledge and capacity that extend beyond this assignment. The outside arrangement may offer different expertise or flexibility. The budget comparison does not price those differences or prove which arrangement better prepares the business for year two.

The $72,000 is a budget difference under the assumptions. It is not demonstrated savings from buying an equivalent business capability.

The calculation exposes the question. It doesn't answer it.

Does the ongoing employee have additional valuable work to do? Does keeping expertise inside the company reduce errors, delays, or dependence on outside help? Does ongoing administration require far more time than estimated? Will the cheaper plan fail when the person holding the knowledge leaves?

Any of those facts could change the decision.

Equally, if the company cannot identify enough valuable ongoing work, adding miscellaneous tasks to justify the headcount doesn't repair the original analysis.

You are paying to keep someone busy rather than paying for work you established the business needs.

The human consequence matters too. Someone may have left another job, reorganized their life, and trusted the opportunity you described.

Do the thinking before making the offer.

A Contractor Is Not an Employee You Manage Through an Invoice.

A short assignment, an invoice, or a signed agreement does not automatically make someone a contractor.

For federal tax purposes, the IRS examines behavioral control, financial control, and the parties' relationship. Other laws can apply different standards; California generally uses an ABC test for covered work, with exceptions and alternative tests. [2][3]

Define the work, then verify that the actual arrangement complies with the applicable rules. A project scope does not settle worker classification.

The same distinction matters in production work.

A camera operator shouldn't arrive on set and discover nobody has established what the client needs. An editor shouldn't receive a mystery drive and be expected to invent the delivery requirements, permissions, review process, and responsibility for missing material.

Someone needs to own the complete outcome.

Scope. Deliverables. Deadlines. Handoffs. Review points. Responsibility for equipment and media. A way to resolve problems before the deadline becomes a fucking surprise.

Those are operating questions. They do not, by themselves, determine whether the people doing the work are employees or independent contractors.

The client's fee has to cover more than the outside specialist's invoice. Planning, coordination, revisions, quality control, and delivery consume resources too.

Charging more than the freelancer charges you doesn't establish that the whole engagement is profitable.

If your plan is to hand someone an ambiguous request and hope they become your operations department, you didn't outsource management.

You abandoned it.

Hiring Does Not Eliminate Management.

An employee can bring experience, initiative, and judgment.

Management still has to establish priorities, resources, and decision rights.

If the assignment changes every week, something previously agreed has to move. If three executives separately redirect the person, somebody has to decide which request takes priority.

Otherwise, you have hired someone to absorb your internal disagreements.

If the work depends on finance, sales, IT, legal, or an outside vendor, cooperation from those parties belongs in the plan. It cannot remain a personal favor the new hire is expected to negotiate indefinitely.

Separately from the hypothetical CRM example, my own operating experience includes being asked to address downstream symptoms of missing systems, unclear ownership, disconnected outside work, and delayed decisions.

You can hire five capable parties and still produce five disconnected definitions of success. Somebody has to own the combined result.

Write the Assignment Before You Advertise the Title.

I want a short operating brief before a polished job posting. Call it a role charter if you like. The name matters less than whether management can answer the questions.

The problem: What condition needs to change? “Take marketing to the next level” tells me almost nothing.

The result: What should the business be able to do after the work? Separate activity from a useful outcome.

The duration: What ends? What repeats? What is uncertain?

The authority: What can the person decide? Who approves the rest? Who resolves a conflict?

The resources: What budget, access, data, equipment, and help actually exist? Who supplies what is missing?

The measures: What can the person materially influence? What depends on somebody else? What takes longer to show up?

The review: Who looks at progress, makes decisions, and authorizes a change in priorities?

The continuing need: What would justify keeping, expanding, or redesigning the role after the first problem is addressed?

That gives the recruiting process something real to select for.

The EEOC's guidance likewise emphasizes job-related selection procedures, appropriate validation for their intended use, and updating procedures when job requirements change. A tidy role brief is not a substitute for those obligations. [4]

You cannot intelligently assess whether somebody fits an assignment you haven't bothered to understand.

The First Ninety Days Shouldn't Be a Scavenger Hunt.

Passwords. Missing files. Contradictory instructions. Undisclosed vendor contracts. A deadline somebody forgot to mention.

Then, at the end of the month: “We thought you'd have made more progress.”

Based on fucking what?

Before judging speed, establish what the person could actually access, what decisions were available, and which dependencies were delivered.

A role that begins with diagnosis and implementation might move through confirming the problem, implementing agreed changes, and evaluating results. Thirty, sixty, and ninety days can provide review points, but the timetable must fit the work.

Document what the person inherited and judge progress against agreed priorities. When the company changes the assignment, update the expectations.

A business cannot keep moving the finish line and pretend it is measuring the runner.

The Salary Isn't the Entire Cost. The Task Isn't the Entire Value.

Salary is only part of the purchasing decision.

The SBA's discussion of employee costs includes payroll costs, benefits, insurance, recruitment, and training. Those categories matter; its dated numerical examples are not a current price list. [5]

You also need to understand supervision, equipment, systems, and the work other people give up to support the position.

When comparing employment, contracting, and outsourcing arrangements, focus on the costs that actually change between the available options.

Some expenses will remain regardless of which arrangement the company chooses. Others arise specifically because of the decision.

There is also an opportunity cost: the value of what the business gives up by committing its money, time, or personnel to one arrangement instead of another.

Those costs should be evaluated without counting the same expense twice.

The lowest immediate price does not necessarily represent the lowest total cost, and the most expensive arrangement does not automatically provide the greatest value.

Account for what each arrangement enables, too: expertise you cannot maintain internally, continuity you would otherwise lose, or capacity needed beyond the initial assignment.

A cheaper arrangement that loses essential capability can cost more in the end.

Sometimes You Hire Someone Because You Don't Know the Answer.

Yes. That can be the right fucking decision.

You may need an experienced operator to diagnose the business, identify the constraints, design the function, and recommend who else should be involved.

You don't have to solve the entire problem before hiring the person capable of solving it.

Diagnosis can be the assignment.

But say so.

Give that person access, a sponsor who can make decisions, an agreed area of responsibility, and a way to turn findings into action.

Don't advertise “run our marketing” when the actual assignment is “discover that our sales process, data, budget, and decision-making all need work—then persuade six people to let you touch any of them.”

And don't use planning as an excuse to delay an obviously necessary hire forever. Roles evolve. Workloads change. Judgment matters precisely because a job cannot anticipate every decision.

The requirement is an honest purpose and workable authority, not perfect foresight.

Here Is What Would Change the Diagnosis.

If the role has sufficient continuing work, usable authority and resources, reliable dependencies, and realistic expectations, yet the employee cannot perform the agreed assignment, capability or performance may be the problem.

That deserves evaluation too.

An unclear system does not excuse every individual failure. A disappointing individual result does not prove the system was sound.

For the hypothetical CRM role, check whether the records remain usable, new entries follow the standards, and the improved information enables useful decisions. Measure the ongoing workload after cleanup rather than assuming it disappears—or lasts forever.

That evidence may justify a broader permanent function. It may confirm a finite need.

Neither conclusion warrants rewriting competent work as failure because management dislikes what it reveals about the original plan.

Headcount Is Not a Strategy.

Filling a position is not the same as solving a business problem.

Before asking who you should hire, establish what the fuck needs doing—and what the business will need after that work succeeds.

Choose a working relationship that supports that need economically, operationally, and legally.

Otherwise, you have made a staffing decision before making a business decision.

And now you are paying someone to discover what management should have decided before they arrived—without telling them that was the fucking assignment.

Continue Reading on anuhlest

• Should I Hire a Marketing Agency, an Employee, a Consultant, or Build It In-House? — how to choose the working relationship after defining the work.
• Everybody Is Responsible. Nobody Is Accountable. — why assigning responsibility without usable authority creates accountability theater.
• “We Need to Take Things to the Next Level.” What the Fuck Does That Mean? — why an undefined ambition is not an executable assignment.
• The Gamble of Consultants — why outside expertise still requires an owner capable of using it.