To think marketing is a career?

[luckylips]

Help me settle and argument between me and a friend. She thinks marketing isn't a career and only roles like doctor/lawyer, etc, are careers. I think marketing is a career. Who is right?!

Of course it's a career!

.

Of course it is.

It's what DD1 does; it's what XFIL did before he retired. DD1 is thoroughly enjoying her job, and is doing really well. XFIL was very successful, and is enjoying an excellent retirement.

Of course it's a career.

Of course it's a career. You can do it for your whole working life and there is plenty of opportunity for progression

Is your friend confusing 'careers' and 'professions'?

Why are you even having arguments with people about rubbish like this? Life's too short

Yes it's a career but you already know that

It's a career, but not a profession, which day what it sounds as though your friend is thinking of.

Is your friend confusing 'careers' and 'professions'? I think she is. Which rather dilutes her pedantry.

I'm closer to being a gran than a mum but I retired last year from industry with over 35 years in marketing . Its definitely a career - I finished up at director level. My advice to anyone thinking of doing is, it to try to get a bottom level job in a big company with a big name or reputation (rather than going for a fancy job title in a small outfit), and to work up from there, And do the qualifications - even if it means studying after work. Good luck!

I use the term 'argument' in the loosest sense of the word, more like discussion!

She said I have a job not a career, I don't need a degree to do my job (I have a professional qualification through CIM) and anyone could pick up my role and even perhaps do it it better than me.

Disclaimer: she wasn't just saying that about my job, she was talking about her own role too (she's a project co-ordinator for the civil service). I was saying I don't feel like that, I feel like I have a career.

Susan - I would be very interested to know what industry you worked in? Great advice btw which matches what I have done so I'm pleased about that!

Hi - I worked in the automotive industry (worked for half a dozen different companies over the years) - only thing I would add to anyone going for a career in Marketing, is it helps if at some stage you do a stint in Sales as it adds to credibility. (Not always easy for us ladies as the hours and/or travelling in a sales job can be harder to fit in with kids) - but worth a thought. Great that this is a topic for mums discussion now! (back in the day when mine were small, it was harder to have any career)

She's talking bollocks.

I have a career as a marketing professional, developed over nearly 20 years (and still going strong). Not sure why we wouldn't be considered a 'profession' either as there are specific marketing qualifications and governing bodies.

What age did the marketing people on this thread become marketing managers?

Is she thinking of network marketing / MLM scams rather than actual marketing?

Moose - no she was specifically talking about my marketing career.

Both career and profession. Or does your friend think only university led careers are professions? Perhaps?

Being a chef is a career and a profession.

Hairdressing is a career and a profession.

And plenty more examples.

Anyways, she's wrong. You're right.

"Profession" is properly defined as jobs that are regulated by law/public authority or professional bodies incorporated by royal charter (lawyers, doctors, teachers etc).

Think that's what people are referring to when they say it's not a profession

One of DD's best mates did a marketing degree at a very good uni and has just got a graduate trainee marketing job with a big brand company. Sounds like a career to me.

Ask her what her definition of a career is, I'm intrigued!

Cos if you can start in job A, get promoted to job B, take a sideways change into similar seniority but different type of job C, eventually get senior position D, speak at a conference, become known in the industry, start your own business in it - and have all this be related to marketing - then if her definition of a career says "nope, that isn't one" then it's a bloody stupid definition, isn't it?

Of course you are right. It's pretty damned lucrative too. Google salaries for CMOs of big companies and show her.

@eternalopt - do you mean, for example, the Chartered Institute of Marketing? Granted Royal Charter in 1989?

Marketing isn't a profession.

The distinction between a job and a career is one as much about the attitude of the individual as the nature of the job itself. A career is something you hope to progress in and have a vocational calling towards. So you could have a career as a binman, if you aspired to and were able to get promotion to Driver, then to supervisor and then team leader and then depot manager. Then you have a (non+professional) career in waste management.

By the same token, my dad was a teacher,
he drifted into it, but never aspired to promotion, didn't feel any particular sense of vocation and did the same job he had when he retired in his 50s as had when he qualified at 21. To him it was a means of earning enough money and nothing more, so it was a (professional) job.

It is a career.
Doesn't it have a chartered institute? If so it's a profession
@grilledaubergines hairdressing is not a profession! It's a trade.