Top Tips for Beating the Competition for Marketing Jobs

    KENT, ENGLAND, November 13, 2011 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marketing and other branches of communications are extremely pervasive. The average person in the UK today will be subject to thousands of advertising and marketing messages every day, in many different forms and from a multitude of sources. As a result, marketing is a diverse and wide-ranging field, and the competition for positions can be intense. So, what follows is a selection of tips to help those of you trying to get into the profession in your quest to get great marketing jobs.

1) Know what you want from your job.
You will get asked at least once during the application process why you want to work in marketing, what it is that attracted you to the industry, and how dedicated you are to achieving your goal. The last thing a recruiter wants to hear is that you haven't really thought about your career, or that you don't know much about the industry or the position to which you are applying - they would much rather hire a candidate who had a genuine interest in the work they will be doing or at least knows about the industry, and for whom a job in marketing is simply a back-up option. Research the company and ensure it's where you want to work, and make sure the recruiter knows this is why you are applying.

2) "So where do you see yourself in 5 years' time?"
Recruiters want to know that this is a career you want for the long term, not simply as a stop-gap. They are bound to ask you something like this, so it's best to have an answer to this as well as the obvious one of, "Why do you want to work in marketing?" A good idea is to have a look on industry job boards, career advice sites etc. and have a look at where you might be in 5 or 10 years' time if you take this role. Not only will it give you a realistic answer for this question, but it will help you make sure that this is the role for you, and that it will lead to the marketing job you ultimately want.

3) Have a decent CV - in marketing presentation and image count for a lot so get this right!
Marketing campaigns have as a key focus the impact that they will make on their target audience. In your application, your target audience is the person reading your application and ultimately deciding whether to give you a chance at actually getting the job by offering you an interview. If you send in a CV filled with spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and misused punctuation, it will fail to impress, and may get you sent to the 'no' pile before they even consider your qualifications, as impressive as they may be. Most recruiters suggest a CV of no more than one page, but if this means cramming information in size 6 font onto the page, either you are including too much, or you can justify going on to a second page. If you're unsure, either check with the HR department of the company to see if they have strict guidelines, or consult a careers advice centre.

4) And to go with that, a good covering letter...
Having a brilliant, word-perfect CV is unlikely to get you anywhere if it is not paired with a covering letter. This should introduce you, explain why you've applied to the position and the company itself, and give a bit more information than the CV provides on its own. This not only avoids your application looking generic and lacking in effort, but gives the employer more of an idea of who you are and why they might want to hire you. You are selling your skills as a potential marketing professional, so what do you have which will make you better at it than other applicants? Define what your passions are and how they relate to your potential as a marketer. Think about what defines you as a person and a potential employee and tell them about you and what makes you special and the next crucial part of their team.

5) No scatterguns
Obviously, the more applications you send out, the more recruiters will be made aware of you and your skills, and hopefully the more likely you will be to get an interview. However, this does not mean showering the entire job market with generic applications and hoping that some stick. The best practice here is to send out a reasonable volume, but to tailor each one based on the research you've done on the company, the specifications of each role etc. If you use the scattergun approach, it is likely to come across in your application, and you will not come across as dedicated as another candidate who has taken more time over it. Hitting a large volume of targets will not necessarily have the desired effect if what you are providing them with is a half-hearted application. Have an application strategy and stick to it.

6) Experience is valuable
Naturally, if you are hired at entry-level or as a graduate recruit, your employer will not expect you to know all the ins and outs of marketing, or to be able to run their flagship campaigns. You will however be expected to know what the industry is all about, and what sort of thing you will be doing. The best way to gain this knowledge and also prove your dedication to the career path is to get some hands-on experience, through work placements, internships, volunteering programmes and so on. You'll find out whether marketing is for you, gain some skills along the way, and be able to say confidently to the recruiter that you know you want to work in marketing, and can give practical examples of why this is the case. Even completely unpaid experience is well worth the effort, as it will pay you back in time as a vital component of a successful CV.

7) Your social media and online 'brand'
Something which you cannot control is what results Google will produce for each user - results are organised relevant to factors such as previous searches, location, and perceived interests, so any number of your-name-related results may spring up. What you can do is make sure that what there is available related to you is not horrifically off-putting for an employer. Prospective employers do not want to know that you go out and get drunk frequently, have a worrying obsession with a celebrity, freely express offensive political or racial views, or denounce their company or clients' brands on a regular basis. They will however be interested to know that you participate in sports teams, interact with people, and have an interesting life outside the office or lecture hall. Profiles on sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook can be a blessing if used correctly, but can also provide an all-too-honest view that you might not want to publicise. Your online brand or identity will not necessarily get you hired or rejected, and not all employers use this form of candidate filtering, but in some cases it can make a big difference.

8) Ignore recruitment myths
There are a lot of recruitment myths out there, and the best advice possible is to avoid them altogether. There are some situations in which an innovative approach to an application might work: sending your CV and covering letter inside a box of chocolates or donuts, or around a bottle of alcohol might catch the eye of a recruiter as something different that no one else did. However, more often than not this may be seen as a blatant bribe attempt and will send your application straight to the shredder. Using a unique approach in your application can be a brilliant idea though - you are after all applying to a world where finding unique ways to sell products or services, so why should your approach to selling your own skills be any different? Just make sure it is not a cliched or overused idea that will do your application more harm than good.

9) Network, network, network
In many industries, networking and talking to people in the business can be really important, and marketing is no different. Networking events, online conversations, company open days and the like provide brilliant opportunities for marketing yourself to potential employers. You can not only get insider insights into the industry, but also make contacts or even talk to a potential recruiter and have a chance to make a positive impression on them before they've even read your application. There are plenty of these events going on all the time if you know where to look.

(Incidentally, Only Marketing Jobs holds industry networking events throughout the year, and information regarding these and other industry developments can be found on the Only Marketing Jobs blog).

Recent data revealed that almost half of London-based job seekers used social media of some form to find their jobs - this is a growing channel for finding employment, as well as business and social networking, so keep it in mind in your marketing jobs search.

Hopefully, this has given you some useful tips on what to do, what to avoid, and what to think about when applying for your next marketing job. Careers in marketing provide ample opportunities for creative brilliance and vastly diverse experiences, so if you fit the bill start looking for your new marketing job today.

For more career advice from Only Marketing Jobs and to find out more about the service, visit www.onlymarketingjobs.com

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