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Posts Tagged ‘jobs’

Marketing Career: 7 habits of highly effective marketing job seekers – part 1

December 2nd, 2011

It’s a tough job market out there. According to Bernhart Associates’ Quarterly Digital and Direct Marketing Employment Report, only 40% of companies reported plans to add staff in the fourth quarter, down from 52% at the beginning of the year. And while decreasing numbers may tempt you to apply for every marketing job you do find, that’s certainly not the most effective way to conduct your job search.

You know from your marketing experience that “batch and blast” and “dialing for dollars” doesn’t work, so why spam potential employers? Instead, prioritize your job search by focusing on positions that will get you on the career path you have in mind to effectively get the most out of each resume you send.

This is where Steven Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People comes in. While not a job seeker advice book, Covey’s book does outline seven habits that easily and wholly apply to the job hunting process. Over the course of four blog posts, I will explain each habit and provide useful ways to apply each to your job search.

I have also spoken with Scott Howard, Executive Director of Operations, MECLABS, and a big fan of Covey’s book. Scott oversees all operations across MECLABS Primary and Applied Research groups, including hiring approximately 60 new employees over the next year. He was kind enough to share some additional job seeking tips you can derive from the “7 Habits.”

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Marketing Career: How to overcome dissatisfaction in marketing jobs

October 28th, 2011

Do you love your marketing job? If you do, you might be in the minority, according to CareerBliss, an online career community dedicated to helping find workplace happiness.

CareerBliss determined the top 10 hated jobs by analyzing hundreds of thousands of employee-generated reviews from 2011. And, two marketing management positions landed on the list.

Director of Sales and Marketing hit at number two, with only IT Director beating it out. Ouch. And Marketing Manager slipped on the list at number 10 spot. Not a promising outlook for those not yet in management, and a worse outlook for those already there.

CareerBliss provided two reasons why the positions earned their spots on the top 10 hated jobs: “an absence of room for growth” and “a lack of direction from upper management.”

After reading this study, I thought about what I would do if I were in the unhappy marketers’ shoes. So I delved further into the topic by reading every article and study Google would give me on the topic. Nothing I found directly answered my question. However, putting all the readings together allowed me to form some ideas to help jog your thinking.

While I wouldn’t suggest quitting your current job just yet (at least not without some research of your own), I do hope this post can give you some hope of getting out of that job you hate. I’d also love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.

In this blog post, we’ll see if there’s real truth behind those reasons given by CareerBliss and what you can do to overcome them. Read more…

Marketing Career: How to get your next job in marketing

October 14th, 2011

Sure, the economy is a bit uncertain. But companies are still looking for high-performing marketing professionals. I know because they post these job openings almost daily on our marketing job listings page.

In fact, I recently came across a shocking bit of data in The Wall Street Journal. From my experience, jobs in advertising and marketing tend to be the most sensitive in an uncertain economy. In a recession, most CEOs seem to cut the marketing budget as step #1 (Step #12, corporate jet).

However, according to SimplyHired, marketing managers is “where the work is,” as it’s listed as one of the occupations listed as having many openings.

I’m not personally familiar with this metric, but marketing managers is listed as having 108 job openings for every 1,000 people employed. That is much more than the “few openings” for mental-health counselors and preschool teachers, with only two openings per 1,000 employed. It’s even more than registered nurses, which I always see recruitment ads for and is widely regarded as desperately in need of more talented people (82 per 1,000).

Intuit is one such company hiring marketing professionals right now. So, I sat down with Leslie Mason, a Senior Recruiter at the computer software company, to help give you an inside scoop about what companies are looking for when they fill these plentiful marketing job openings.

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