Whether you’re a career changer or you plan on making marketing your first foray into the world of having a real job, there’s a lot you can do to prepare for success. Working on creating your own personal brand, going to college for a degree, choosing a specialty, and understanding people and their various roles will all help you build a career.
Brand Yourself
Marketing doesn’t solely mean digital marketing, but that’s a big part of what many people in the field do these days. With this in mind, developing a personal brand online with an eye to letting it operate as a kind of portfolio is an excellent way to hone your skills and show employers that you’re savvy when it comes to managing various social media platforms. By the same measure, make sure that you tidy up your online footprint. If you have old accounts out there that cast you in a bad light, delete them.
Get Your Education
A degree in marketing lets employers know you’re serious about your profession and that you already have the skills and knowledge you need to hit the ground running. Unfortunately, as important as this degree is, some may feel as though they must postpone getting it because of the cost of a college education. Fortunately, there are many scholarships for college available. You can go online to search and apply for them. It’s possible in some cases to put together enough in scholarship money to cover your entire tuition although scholarships can also be valuable even when they add up to much less.
Choose Your Specialty
You’ll need to think about the kind of marketing position that you want to have even if you don’t immediately step into that position after you graduate. In your first job, you may find yourself doing something somewhat different from what you plan in the long run. If you’re working for a small company, you might end up being the entire marketing department on your own. At a larger company, you may be in a junior position with the more interesting tasks reserved for people who have more seniority. However, having a good idea of the path you ultimately want to pursue will help you focus your career in the right direction from the start. These jobs can vary a great deal, from the more analytical, such as market research analyst, to the more creative, such as copywriter, graphic designer, or creative director.
Connect
As a marketing professional, you will need to learn how to connect with several different groups of people. One is customers or clients. You must understand them to know what approach will appeal to them. Another is your coworkers, with whom you must work as part of a team. Yet another is people within the industry. You’ll need to be able to network in order to learn useful tips for jobs interviews and stay on top of opportunities. Finally, understanding your competitors also matters because that helps you identify how your brand is different.