An open letter to everyone hiring a search leader

Anthropic’s latest occupation posting has the SEO manufacture abuzz. They whitethorn arsenic good person titled it Search Gawd. The truth is, it’s everywhere.

To beryllium transparent, I’ve written this occupation explanation a fewer times and interviewed for it. I’ve yet to spot immoderate of these roles get filled, but I’ll travel backmost to that successful a minute.

Sometimes the title is Head of SEO. Sometimes it’s Director of AI Search, VP of Search, Director of SEO, AEO and GEO, aliases — hold for it — Agentic Commerce GEO Consultant.

Lots of titles. The duty is fundamentally the same: ain method SEO, understand paid search, style content, partner pinch engineering and product, build measurement, hole for AI-mediated discovery, explicate it to leadership, and move it into growth.

The predictable guidance is that this is simply a batch of jobs rolled into one. An full agency down a azygous worker badge. Fair, but it misses the point.

Companies person been looking for this personification for years. Generative hunt is conscionable forcing the issue.

This is not an Anthropic problem

This morning’s hunt connected the occupation boards: 

• Victoria’s Secret: Director, AI & Organic Search (AEO, GEO, SEO), $152K–$216K.
• Publicis / Starcom: VP, SEO (Performance Content).
• Accenture: Agentic Commerce GEO Consultant.
• SailPoint: AEO/GEO Manager.
• AirOps: Senior SEO Manager spanning SGE, Perplexity, ChatGPT, Gemini.
• Responsive: Senior Manager, Web Strategy — SEO, GEO, positive Next.js, React, Vercel, DNS.
• Danaher, Experian Health, Amazon News: immoderate type of SEO + AEO + GEO.
• Anthropic: SEO Lead, $255K–$320K.

Different industries. Different value points. Same job, unwittingly each looking for the aforesaid person.

Even the titles are arguing pinch the occupation descriptions

Agency X is hiring a “Director, SEO/SEM” whose responsibilities incorporate nary SEO — conscionable paid search, SEM platforms, vendor management, and a squad of seven.

Consulting patient Y is hiring a “Director, SEO/AIO,” wherever AIO appears to beryllium an in-house acronym nary 1 bothered to define.

An indy agency’s “VP/Director, SEO” lists paid search, paid social, and pharmaceutical trading among the nice-to-haves.

A token investigation patient is hiring a “Director, SEO & AEO” whose responsibilities really picture SEO and AEO activity — uncommon capable to beryllium worthy mentioning.

If the institution can’t work together connected what the domiciled is earlier posting it, the campaigner has nary chance of gathering expectations that were ne'er written down.

The taxonomy says 1 thing. The JD says another. The recruiter screens for a third. The hiring head interviews for a fourth. The ATS filters retired anyone worthy a shit.

Looking for the missing link

You request personification who tin spot crossed method search, content, PR, product, engineering, analytics, capacity media, and marque — and understand that those functions were ne'er arsenic independent arsenic the org floor plan suggested.

Search has ever exposed the seams. A method problem tin look for illustration a contented problem. A contented problem tin beryllium a merchandise problem. A visibility problem whitethorn beryllium an authority problem, not an optimization problem. Paid hunt often surfaces a messaging problem earlier marque investigation does.

Generative find makes those limitations intolerable to ignore. When results go answers, SEO stops being a postulation function.

At the consequence of going afloat Yoda to debar AI-slop speak: found, accusation is, only if infrastructure allows it. Content makes it understood. Brand makes it trusted. Product turns find into usage — aliases it doesn’t.

You’re not asking 1 personification to execute each task. You’re asking 1 personification to understand really the pieces connect. That personification exists. Your chances of uncovering that personification done a accepted scoring strategy are slim by design.

The résumé will not look the measurement you expect

The worth of this campaigner isn’t captured by years nether an SEO title aliases a checklist of software. The worth is judgment:

• Knowing which method rumor matters and which is noise.
• Recognizing erstwhile the contented squad can’t lick the contented problem.
• Knowing erstwhile to spend, erstwhile to automate, erstwhile to wait, and erstwhile to show activity to extremity doing that.

That judgement is difficult to seizure connected a résumé. The campaigner whitethorn person moved done agencies, publishing, product, consulting, and operating roles. Their profession whitethorn look little focused than a specialist’s. That’s precisely why they tin do the job.

Your ATS will surface them out. Your recruiter will emblem them arsenic “non-linear.” Your hiring sheet will statement they haven’t held the title before. Well, the title didn’t beryllium before. No 1 tin work together connected what to telephone it.

You tin spot really this hunt is already going sideways.

A little charitable possibility

Some of these processes whitethorn beryllium little astir filling a domiciled than learning from the group consenting to question and reply for it.

Senior candidates diagnose. They explicate really they’d building the function, wherever the statement is weak, what the first 90 days should look like, which devices they’d buy, and which activity they’d kill. Invite capable of them in, and a institution tin cod competing organizational models and strategical priorities without hiring immoderate of them.

Perhaps that isn’t the intent. But erstwhile a domiciled stays unfastened for months, gets many times reposted, changes title and scope, and produces interviews that consciousness much for illustration advisory sessions, candidates are entitled to inquire what the institution is really buying: talent acquisition aliases knowledge harvesting?

The solution isn’t a shorter occupation description

The breadth is real, truthful cutting half the bullets doesn’t make the activity disappear. Decide what you want. Is it:

• A master who will execute?
• A leader who will build a team?
• An executive who tin link search, content, product, brand, and performance?
• A advisor who tin show you which 1 you need?

Those are different jobs. Pretending they’re 1 domiciled and waiting for a unicorn isn’t a strategy.

A closing note, since you asked

I would, however, beryllium very bully astatine the job. So would a fistful of others who’d get screened retired for the aforesaid reason.

The Anthropic job? Not getting it.

Five years nether a title that didn’t beryllium 5 years agone — I don’t person them. My résumé sounds for illustration the occupation spec itself, successful precisely the style an ATS is built to reject. It’s an easy strategy to game. So easy that anyone worthy their brackish knows how.

The missing nexus is real. Generative hunt didn’t create it; it conscionable made it harder to ignore. Before you prosecute personification to link these systems, make judge your institution tin admit them, prosecute them, and fto them do the job.

The institution that figures retired really to admit the candidate—not conscionable constitute the occupation description—quietly wins the adjacent decade while everyone other argues connected LinkedIn astir whether GEO is simply a word.