Why this matters
Most bad first hires trace back to a fuzzy job definition: the founder hired "help" instead of a role. Without written duties, hours, and a researched wage, you'll write a vague post, attract the wrong people, and discover disagreements about the job after someone is on payroll.
What "done" looks like
- A one-page description with 5–8 concrete duties, required skills, and schedule
- A pay range benchmarked against real local market data, not a guess
- Total cost calculated — wage plus employer taxes, workers' comp, and any benefits
- A clear picture of what success looks like at 90 days
How to do it
- List the tasks you actually need done — track your own week and mark what you should hand off. Duties, not adjectives.
- Set hours and schedule: full-time or part-time, fixed shifts or flexible, on-site or remote.
- Benchmark the wage using BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for your occupation and metro, plus live postings for the same role nearby.
- Calculate the full cost: employer payroll taxes add 7.65% for Social Security and Medicare, plus unemployment taxes and workers' comp premiums.
- Write the one-pager: title, duties, must-have skills, schedule, pay range, and who they report to.
Common mistakes
- Hiring a mirror of yourself who "does everything" instead of a role that removes your biggest bottleneck.
- Setting pay by gut — under-market posts sit unfilled and cost you more in lost time.
- Budgeting only the wage and getting surprised by taxes, insurance, and equipment.
Real-world examples
- BLS OEWS publishes median and percentile wages by occupation and metro area, for free.
- A widely cited MIT Sloan estimate puts the true cost of an employee at roughly 1.25–1.4x base salary once taxes and benefits are included.
From a founder's point of view
Writing the job down forces the honest question: is this one job or three? If the one-pager needs a salesperson, a bookkeeper, and a warehouse hand, the hire will fail no matter who takes it.
Rule of thumb
If a stranger reading your one-pager can't tell what the job is and what it pays, it isn't defined yet.