What are some entry level marketing jobs?

What are some entry level marketing jobs?

Hi, I’m Janet Granger and the question I’m answering is: what are some entry-level jobs in marketing? 

I’ve done some research for you and I found a great article called “7 Entry Level Marketing Jobs and How to Land Them” – as well as another: “10 Entry Level Marketing Jobs to Jump Start Your Career.” I recommend you take a look at these, as well as “Entry Level Marketing Jobs for New College Grads.” And I want you to give some strategic advice as you consider these roles. 

The first thing I want you to do is realize that it’s really important, if you want to get a job in marketing, to have something out there about yourself. You could do a website, if you want; I recommend that you have a profile on LinkedIn. I know that a lot of you are not really comfortable with LinkedIn, so this is the first hurdle to get over, and that is to do your best and be professional there.

Doing your best means using a picture that wouldn’t embarrass you, if it came back to haunt you. Use proper grammar, highlight your accomplishments, show that you’re a quick learner, and that you’re eager to do work. And that you have an enthusiastic attitude. 

As I’ve said in other answers, the one thing that you can’t get trained on is your attitude. So I want you to put yourself out there as having an amazing attitude; and making sure there are no typos is a great way to show that nothing’s going to get past you. Because people are fearful of that, and you’ve seen it in many places, the famous “intern’s mistake.” You don’t want a typo, be it transposing numbers or anything else, to be your legacy. It’s just a hard thing to go through. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.

All of us make mistakes, but it’s good if you start out with not having any mistakes, and being careful and not sloppy about your LinkedIn profile is a great way to start. 

After you’ve done your LinkedIn profile, the second thing that I recommend you do is “do your homework.” That is, figure out your skills and how they would apply to a marketing job. I’m going to give you some examples. 

If you’re a good writer, tell people that you’re looking to use your writing skills, and you’d be interested in being either a junior content creator or an intern writing content or writing social media posts. 

Or maybe even trying your hand at blogs. You could read other people’s blogs and write some sample blogs. It’s a really good idea if you want to work for a certain company to look at the blogs they already have up, and sort of mimic them and write your own and show how you could contribute. That’s a really valuable thing to do so people can actually see a writing sample. 

If you’re good with apps and tech, perhaps you might help with managing some marketing software at a larger corporation. Larger organizations usually have CRMs (Customer Relationship Management) tools. So search these and see what you could learn. That would be helpful. 

Let’s say a marketing team is using HubSpot. You might want to talk about HubSpot or other CRM tools, or even sales tools, like Salesforce.com. That’s a really good use of your skills, if you’re really good with technology.

If you’re good with numbers and data, then I recommend you learn about Google analytics. Every company that has a website looks at their Google analytics. If you could help them on that front, that would be a really good thing for you to think about – saying that you could help them with when it came to finding the data, looking at the data data, helping them understand the data, et cetera.

If you’re good with design, create some amazing samples of social media posts for a company that you’d like to work for. Just make them up. Back in the old days, before there was an internet, what people would do to get into marketing is they would do “sample” ads: magazine ads, other ads. They would create a portfolio of these fake ads just to show what their skillset was, because otherwise, all you have is your education – if you haven’t yet gotten your first job.

The other thing I recommend you do is look at the type of work that people are requesting on places like Upwork and Freelancer, or what kind of roles they’re looking to fill. That will give you a sense of what’s really going on in the marketplace. And it will also help you understand the skills that you have that dovetail with what people are looking for, in terms of jobs and the type of role you want.

In the article I told you about earlier, it says to tell everyone you know that you’re looking for that type of internship or marketing role. Again, the article has good examples. And in these cases, a lot of times your friends, your friend’s parents, your family’s friends, and your parents’ friends can be really helpful to you. 

Although this will make you cringe, another thing that can be very helpful is to ask a parent or an older person, someone who is a generation older than you, to post on Facebook on your behalf and say, “Hey, does anyone have a need XX role to fill?” Because they may have a really great circle of friends who are at the level where they might be looking for someone like you. 

Finally, in terms of jobs, I highly recommend internships. You want to make sure you get paid for the internship – I’m not going to tell you how much, because that depends – but I will tell you that you should get paid. I’ve had interns and they are, I think, amazing opportunities for you. 

Not only to sort of get into a position, but also to see what marketing is like. Who knows? You may not like doing marketing for a living. You may not want to be sitting in front of a computer or a phone or a screen. It’s really good for you to have an internship and understand that this will be the kind of experience you’ll be having. 

Having said that, I will tell you that I had an internship very early on, when I was in college, with an ad agency, and it was horrible; it turned me off of marketing for years. So recognize that if you don’t have a good internship experience, you have to sort of tease out:is it the people? Is it the work? It was the people, in my case. Or was it the work that I really didn’t like doing? 

Sometimes if it’s the people – but you enjoyed the work – then you just need to make sure you go someplace else. 

It’s a really good idea to get a first job to get your feet wet with that. Internships are a great way for you and a company not to have to commit to one another. It’s like dating before you get married, where there’s like a real relationship – where you’re an employee – and you get to test them and they get to test you. Again, make sure that you get paid for your work. I’m not saying you should give it away – however, I did say earlier to do some work upfront to let people know that you “have the chops” – that you can do the work. 

I’m Janet Granger answering the question: what are some entry-level jobs in marketing?