Is it difficult to find a job as a Marketer these days in the constantly changing Marketing Industry?
When I started working in the industry, I told myself that I wasn’t a rocket scientist, and no one expected me to launch a rocket to the moon on my first day. If I didn’t know something I could just open Google and search for the solution.
In my first marketing job, I needed to use Tableau for data analytics, it was my first time seeing Tableau, so it took me a while to learn and be able to pull out the data that I needed.
I also didn’t get familiar with LinkedIn ads or TikTok before I’ve been giving a task to run a few campaigns and did some research.
But today, with the diversity and constant change in the industry, this type of approach is becoming harder and harder. Every workplace expects to get an exceptional Rocket Scientist that won’t have a need to do Google Research, and that will know exactly how the specific company works or what it needs.
They expect marketers to know how to install custom code via Google Tag Manager, to be able to create perfect data Dashboards for the client even without seeing some examples first.
Just 5-6 years ago I could define the Digital Marketer job title in just a few sentences and know exactly what kind of skills one needs in order to do their job properly, today the situation is different. There are more than 50 job titles for Marketers.
Job Titles like,
Marketing Coordinator
Marketing Communications Manager
Digital Marketing Manager
Social Media Manager
Content Marketing Manager
Brand Manager
Public Relations Manager
Market Research Analyst
Marketing Data Analyst
Marketing Operations Manager
Marketing Automation Specialist
SEO Specialist
PPC Specialist
Email Marketing Specialist
Growth Hacker
E-commerce Marketing Manager
Event Marketing Manager
Mobile Marketing Specialist
Analytics Manager
Creative Director
Advertising Manager
Influencer Marketing Manager
Customer Success Manager
Advertising Manager
Influencer Marketing Manager
Customer Success Manager
And it’s impossible to know what exactly this job title’s definition is because the main difference here is the creativity of HR representatives. Whatever they want to call their job description, at the end of the day it’s still the same marketer for all of these job titles.
As a new marketer, it is probably super confusing to understand if you have what it takes for a job, so let me simplify.
Let’s define marketing,
Marketing is the process of creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large. It involves identifying the needs and wants of target customers, developing products or services that meet those needs and wants, promoting and advertising those products or services, and distributing them through various channels to reach and satisfy customers.
As a marketer, you should be familiar with marketing theories and a little bit of psychology, to understand the market and your customers. But how you choose to reach your goal, it’s just different tools.
For instance,
SEO and PPC are different styles of Marketing, it’s under the same marketing hat, and even possibly be used by the same person.
Email marketing and Public Relations Manager, both job titles can describe one person, who can launch an email campaign and send some articles to magazines at the same time, while magazines and emails are just tools.
The main problem behind diversity is that usually people who are hiring Marketers have no idea what marketing is, nor should they. All they want to stand out from their competitors, they want to show that their company is the best fit for you, to attract you from the first glance on their job application. Which just turns out to be super confusing for new marketers to understand. While 80% of the description is based on how many vacation days one will get, the number of free snacks, and the company t-shirt. This information is completely useless and has nothing to do with skills and job requirements description.
Let’s look at some examples,
The part that describes the ideal candidate is just perfect.
Vast experience as an affiliate manager – it usually means that you can simply send a message via email, skype, or any other communication app to check in on a person and ask them for whatever data your company wants to be delivered. It has NOTHING to do with marketing, besides you know what “impressions”, “leads” or similar lingo means.
A deep understanding of market trends – what does it even mean? Should I know what’s the price of the stock today or who is going to be the next CEO? This one really shows that the HR rep has no idea about what’s really needed for this job. This sentence will scare new marketers away.
Other foreign languages – there are currently 7,117 known languages, you have to be more specific.
- “Create and implement digital marketing campaigns to drive sales and maximize profit. “ I love this one, it’s a super long and accurate description, someone is really looking for the best of the best or in other words the magician. Since MARKETING CAMPAIGNS – are not called that for fun, it’s designed to achieve a specific business objective, if it’s to increase sales, get new clients, and so on. The pure goal of a marketing campaign is to increase profit, otherwise, it would just be called “spend money on a Facebook campaign”
- “Manage social media content” – when I see campaign management and content management in the same job description, I always look for other tasks like cleaning the office and answering calls after hours. Because it’s impossible. This, right here is already a job for at least 2 people, if not 3, since there should be Graphic Designer involved. (Oh ye, that’s exactly what they are looking for in the last requirement point)
- This job description is long, it’s hard to read, it’s complicated and the only appealing thing about it is the company benefits.
For a junior marketer who is trying to find his/her way in the industry, it’s important to know what would value from the specific job, and what new skills can be learned at this job, what kind of new tools will be received and who is going to be a manager, is it someone who has a lot of experience and can share some.
I am not blaming HR reps for these job descriptions, it’s hard for them to create a useful and description for marketers since they are responsible for hiring everyone else person for that company as well, and it’s too much information to keep in their heads about each job description. But there is definitely a need to simplify these long paragraphs into something that even non-marketing personnel can understand. That’s how we can keep the same level of professionalism, learn and evolve.
As for marketers who are looking for a job wherever it’s to get more experience or for already extremely experienced marketers, here is my advice for you.
- Don’t apply to a job that is hiring just one person instead of 3 or more. You’ll end up disappointed.
- Don’t be afraid to send over your resume if you are missing just a few tools that are required for the job. (Don’t forget that there are always differences between what a company is looking for and what they advertise in their job description)
- A number of vacation days are not important (you can ALWAYS negotiate for more), what’s important is the value that you are going to get in that company from investing your time.
- Be confident in your abilities, and show it in the job interview.
Other than that, I can wish you good luck.
If you want to learn more about Marketing Experience you might want to check out my other articles in my Blog.
