Marketing recruitment, with the portfolio actually read.
Marketing coordinators through to managers, SEO and paid specialists, content people and designers - screened by LINK's own marketing and creative teams, who read the portfolio and check whether the campaign results stand up. Rates from 15%, six-month replacement guarantee.
The roles we place, and what we test for.
Every candidate is interviewed by someone currently doing that job. This is what that screen actually looks at.
| Role | What we screen for | Typical, Aug 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing Coordinator | Execution evidence - what they actually shipped, not what their team shipped. | $75,000-$85,000 |
| Marketing Manager | Strategy and budget ownership, and whether the numbers they quote have baselines. | $121,500 |
| Content & Social Specialist | We read the writing. Voice, consistency and whether the engagement was earned or bought. | $77,500-$86,000 |
| SEO & Ads Specialist | Account access history, real Ahrefs and GA reasoning, and honesty about what did not work. | $80,000-$90,000 |
| Graphic Designer | Portfolio reviewed by LINK Creative's own designers, including the brief behind each piece. | $75,000-$90,000 |
On these numbers. Indicative only, and moving. Figures as at August 2026, excluding super - mostly typical advertised salaries, Brisbane where the data supports it and national otherwise, with the rows marked from our payroll taken from what LINK itself pays. The market is shifting and rates are moving constantly, so treat these as a starting point rather than a benchmark: you'll get Ayu's current read on your specific role, from searches running this month, in the first conversation.
Benched against Marketing
What does the role actually pay?
Pick the role, tell it three things, and it puts you inside the published range with the working shown. Hiring rather than looking? That is the number you will need to offer.
Pick a role to see what it typically pays and where your experience sits inside that.
How this is worked out
It starts from the published range for the role and places you inside it by experience, then adjusts for where you work. Every step:
- 0-2 years: 8% of the way up
- 3-5 years: 35% of the way up
- 6-9 years: 60% of the way up
- 10-14 years: 82% of the way up
- 15+ years: 96% of the way up
- Brisbane / SEQ: the base
- Sydney or Melbourne: +8%
- Regional or fully remote: -3%
- The result is held inside the published range, never outside it.
Indicative only, and moving. Figures as at August 2026, excluding super - mostly typical advertised salaries, Brisbane where the data supports it and national otherwise, with the rows marked from our payroll taken from what LINK itself pays. The market is shifting and rates are moving constantly, so treat these as a starting point rather than a benchmark: you'll get Ayu's current read on your specific role, from searches running this month, in the first conversation.
This market, read by an employer in it.
Marketing is the discipline where the candidate pool is deepest and the quality spread is widest, which makes screening the whole game. A marketing CV is unusually easy to write well and unusually hard to verify: campaign results are quoted without baselines, agency work is claimed at the team level, and job titles inflate faster than in any other discipline we recruit.
What that means in practice is that the shortlist matters more than the search. Almost any Brisbane marketing role will attract volume; very few of those applicants will survive a portfolio review by someone who has run the same campaigns. That review is the part most agencies cannot do, and it is the part we do in-house.
Portfolios read by practitioners
LINK Marketing and LINK Creative run SEO, paid, content, brand and web work for clients every day. Your candidates' portfolios are reviewed by the people doing that work - which is why the screen catches inflated campaign claims that a keyword match never would.
We hire these roles ourselves
The group employs marketers, designers and SEO specialists across its own divisions. The salary read you get is what we are currently paying and what we are currently losing candidates over, not a figure from a published guide.
Your search is run by Ayu.
Talent Manager, LINK · Professional Services & Technology Recruitment
Close to a decade in recruitment across professional services, technology and government. She recruits for every division of the LINK group, which is where the salary and time-to-fill read on this page comes from. More about Ayu
Your questions, straight answers.
How do you screen marketing candidates?
By having practising marketers do it. Portfolios are read by LINK Creative's designers and LINK Marketing's SEO and paid specialists, campaign results are checked for baselines rather than taken at face value, and writing samples are actually read. The shortlist comes with an honest note on each person, including any doubts we have.
Do you recruit agency-side or in-house marketers?
Both, and we will give you a frank view on which a candidate genuinely suits - the move between them fails more often than either side admits, usually because agency generalists are hired into in-house roles that turn out to need deep specialisation, or the reverse.
What does a marketing manager cost to hire in Brisbane?
The fee is a percentage of first-year salary - from 15%, topping out around 20%, against an Australian market that typically charges 15-25%. For the salary itself, you will get our current read in writing in the first conversation, drawn from what LINK is paying its own marketing staff this year.
Can you recruit contract or freelance marketers?
Our core work is permanent. For project and overflow work, LINK Marketing and LINK Creative already deliver campaigns as an agency - so in some cases the honest answer is that you do not need a hire at all, and we will say so.
Contact Ayu, your recruitment specialist.
Tell us the role and within one business day you'll have our market read in writing - whether or not you engage us.
Prefer to talk? 07 3899 8311
Looking for a marketing & creative role, not hiring for one?
Send Ayu your CV and she'll come back when something fits - including if you're not actively looking yet.
Want to know what the role pays first? Check it with the salary calculator: Marketing manager salary in Australia · Graphic designer salary in Australia
Want to work at LINK itself, rather than be placed with a client? That's our careers page.