To ask about marketing jobs?

[Butterfly94]

So I've left my teaching job as I can't stand it anymore and want to be home with my two kids before they start school. I'm looking to change careers and use the next few years (DD2 is 18 months) to retrain. I have an English and Philosophy degree and taught English at secondary. I've been looking at jobs in marketing and they sound interesting to me and seem to be something I would be good at. Having done a bit of research I think I need to do the CIM, is this right? I've also seen Masters degrees in Marketing, but can't work out if this is a waste of time and money, and employers would care more about experience, can anyone advise what steps I should take? I can't really look for a day job at the moment as we can't afford childcare for 2, so anything I can do to show I have been focused on this area would be good. Where should I start?

And can anyone who works in this area tell me what their job title is and what they do day to day? I quite like the idea of working in fashion but any areas would be good to know about!

You won’t need CIM

any company that hires with no experience but with CIM will usually be outdated in their approaches, CIM is very much teaching the way traditional marketing should work, not how it works irl.

marketing is becoming more and more digitally focused, that might be an issue with little to no experience.

in terms of me, I am head of European search marketing for a FTSE10 company, I don’t have a degree, or CIM but a shit load of hands on experience in my field. Most businesses are moving to a digital first model, and many larger companies will not hire traditional marketing roles anymore, in my company the CEO has already said no marketeers will be promoted if they cant demonstrate digital skills and awareness, so I am now very busy upskilling!

you’ll need to get in very entry level roles, most likely agency based to start off as you are now.

I will also add that for entry level marketing roles you’ll be competing against recent grads and younger candidates, which is unfortunately also a barrier

i am the same age as you (if the 94 in your username is your year of birth) and many agencies run young, I often feel ancient despite not even hitting 30 yet

I’m Director of Marketing and Communications and come from a similar educational background as you. I started in an entry level comms job and have just made moves following my interests.

You don’t need CIM but they’re worth being a member of, I am. The training and networking opportunities are worth it.

Marketing is a big area so it depends on your interests. The agency world is desperate for staff but it can be long hours and poor work/life balance. What aspect of marketing are you interested in? I’m an in-house and have a team that includes a social media strategist, copywriters, web developer, graphic designers, a videographer etc. There are so many ways to go!

I got into marketing with a non related degree at entry level. However this was 20years ago and I think more and more people want related qualifications. It's a very different world to the one I worked in though. Mine was mainly writing press releases, junk mail, posters and brochures. Now it's mainly updating social media which would bore me to tears!
Personally I always thought I'd love marketing but actually the reality was quite boring!

You sound like you’d be a good fit for more of a communications role.

I work in FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) and started out on a graduate programme. I started off as a brand marketer but am now Head of Innovation and Insights, so more specialised in the area of new product development (identifying consumer needs, coming up with and testing ideas for new products, that kind of thing).

I personally don't think a Masters is necessary. The majority of people we hire at entry level have a Bachelors degree in business.

I'd recommend CIM too.

Depends what type of marketing you think you want to do. Do you have any friends who work in marketing that you could spend a day with? Might help you understand the difference between different types.

Lots of jobs in marketing are digital marketing in which case you would be better off starting with the Google Fundamentals of Digital Marketing course which is online and free (and not a bad thing to do regardless of what type of marketing you’re going into) and going from there if you enjoy it rather than commit to doing CIM straight off the bat.

There are a lot of online courses you can do for free. It’s also worth baring in mind that you might have to start in a junior position. I agree with previous poster that mentioned looking at comms and not just marketing.

Thanks for all your replies. As I've said, I'm completely new to this area so hope I don't sound stupid! I've just been looking on the Guardian jobs and the ones that stand out have been a theatre marketing assistant and a private school communications officer. Communications might be an area to look into, thanks to the poster who suggested that!

@ThePerfectCircle I'll look into that, sounds good.

Thanks for the replies, lots of food for thought. I'll do a lot more research I think, but I like the look of a lot of the jobs I've seen!

You could try the digital mums marketing course. They help you find work after as well.

I’m divided on the CIM need. I fell into digital marketing back in 2008 from working in web management. Digital marketing was very new then and I did the digital marketing diploma, which I would say is still very relevant. I’m currently Head of Marketing for a tech start up and though my background is in digital - which by the sounds of it is very sought after now - I’ve pivoted into more generalised marketing roles and do a lot of strategy that might be considered more traditional but in my mind is still relevant. Just lots of things I didn’t know I didn’t know - competitive research, market research, business acumen knowledge - none of which I had learnt in years of digital marketing.

Digital marketing is one facet - a vehicle of strategies and tactics - but you wouldn’t solely do digital just like you wouldn’t solely do field or content marketing. You need a whole range of marketing disciplines within a wider plan so being a generalised marketer is still very relevant.

If it were me I would probably do the CIM diploma in digital marketing because it has a marketing foundations element to it. Then look at something like Pavilion for demand generation courses or their marketing executive course. I’ve done their CMO school and it’s very good. Plus the community is brilliant. Demand generation is very much the now of marketing and very much the future - creating demand around a product or service with tactics that put the customer first: inbound tactics, ungated content, understanding where they reside online and educating and becoming indispensable as a resource and eventually, tool, for their work. Hubspot is case in point about this. Digital plays strongly in demand generation but it’s also offline as well - events or experiential marketing are examples of offline demand generation.

I don’t know if I am confusing you or helping you! Just that yes digital is pretty much a misnomer for some parts of marketing these days but the more traditional marketing elements are still relevant, and I would bear that in mind re your learning choices. Definitely not a masters though! Seriously no need for that.

Oh also sorry, one last thing. Digital is definitely doing things like social media, email and online content. But it is also analysing human behaviour using digital tools. Trying to figure out what path they took to find your website, where you can attribute your marketing efforts, where the drop off points are and importantly - why. Analysing the behaviour within campaigns and looking at lots of data like google analytics, heat maps, seo, lead tracking, ABM to understand what worked and why.

That’s the bit I love about digital because I love figuring out the puzzle, but it might not be fun for everyone!

What experience are those roles looking for? I’d use that as a starting point.

It’s a hard job to enter into cold, most need to get their break quite young and work up

You also have to tend to be confident at selling yourself, I can’t count the amount of times in my career someone has asked ‘can you do this’ and you have to say yes with confidence and figure out how to do it afterwards! Especially when general marketing trends, tools and practices change at the blink of an eye.

I find the issue in the marketing world is even assistant roles require some experience, it’s actually quite unlike other sectors from that perspective.

Thanks @GorgeousLadyofWrestling, that definitely does help! Figuring out the patterns and trends and analysing the data does sound interesting to me, so it looks like I'm on the right track!

Annoyingly @PoundOfNesh they just say they want someone 'experienced'; no specific qualifications or anything listed! I'll have a look at some more and work from there though.

Have a look at marketing or Comms roles within universities, your teaching experience will be useful there - could potentially even look at outreach or schools and college liaison roles where teaching experience is a real bonus. You don't necessarily need any marketing experience for these roles and there are a lot of positions available and recruits are thin on the ground! Not the most amazing salaries to begin with but excellent benefits and annual leave and usually a nice environment to work in!

Also second the free online courses you can do to learn the marketing basics. If you are confident and organised with good ideas and lateral thinking, the actual digital skills required can be learned!

Although I do have a stupid question- where would people recommend I did a Digital Marketing CIM? There's loads of providers and some only mention a diploma and others say I need the level 3 CIM to start with, so not sure who to start looking at.

Marketing is increasingly segmented by skills. Marketing agencies have quite specific requirements in different departments so it would be useful for you to pick an area to focus on (creative, graphic design, analytics, media planning) and develop skills to help you to target your bullseye job.

I took my CIM qualification 15 years ago, but I used Oxford College of Marketing through the University of Sussex. I was doing the post-grad and paid to get the online access (the basic bit) plus weekly seminars at the university, plus a termly intensive weekend - I was travelling regularly with my job and knew I'd likely miss 2 weekly seminars so the weekends were to ensure I didn't miss anything. The course assumed a level of knowledge of advertising and promotion execution which I didn't have and the face to face was so helpful because I met people from different industries and backgrounds.

www.oxfordcollegeofmarketing.com/cim-courses/foundation-certificate-in-professional-digital-marketing/

They've got a virtual open evening in a couple of weeks, I'd join that and ask if you need to start at the foundation certificate level or certificate.

They won’t post qualifications needed, as most roles don’t require specific qualifications, experience is the biggest, if not only factor for most roles.

I’ve never even seen a JD asking for CIM for example.

Marketing is a big area so it depends on your interests. The agency world is desperate for staff but it can be long hours and poor work/life balance.

^ agree with the above (incl the agency warning). I have over 20 years experience in a specialised field of FMCG marketing - and while I have a broad idea, I could not do a general brand marketing job as all my experience is in my speciality

You don’t need a Masters

Some kind of basic marketing course would not hurt as an overview & to show commitment (eg online short course). CIM is a bit old fashioned but equally would give you the basics

Thinking of FMCG brand management salaries (in London)
Entry level jobs are not v well paid (no idea as I’m not at that level but maybe 30s?).

Colleagues with around 8 years good experience are doing well to earn about 50-60k as brand managers/senior brand managers.
80-120k would be a v decent salary for someone senior (director/head of) - 15 plus years experience, maybe up to 200k if heading up a large team but that’s unusual

Nowadays, the most desired employers are tech (google etc) and pay well but tough hours

I think you should try to home in on the area that is the right fit for you - look at the Marketing Society website & CIM to see what appeals

What kind of organisation do you want to work for (a manufacturer, a media company, in education, public sector etc ) - there are marketing roles in all of these

Can you try to do informational interviews- eg can friends introduce you to the marketing teams in the organisation they work for?

I’ve never even seen a JD asking for CIM for example.

I have, and more than once.

I would recommend looking at independent schools marketing/comms roles. Best place to see these advertised is the AMCIS website (Association of Admissions Marketing and Communications in Independent schools) your teaching experience will be an advantage

I have too but this requirement is invariably dropped for experienced candidates. I’ve worked in the marketing teams of several massive household names and my colleagues did not have CIM - majority aged under 35 now would have a business degree though

Most started with grad schemes or (paid) internships or sandwich placements

I did my CIM years ago and I do think it helped me get my foot in the door (at the time) just having it on my CV as many jobs asked for it, however hands on experience has been far, far more useful and valuable.

I agree with all the comments above about digital marketing courses. Don't bother with a masters, start with the quickest and cheapest (or free) course and just start applying for jobs as soon as you have something to add to your CV. It'll help get your foot in the door and then when you're in a role you get really learn.

Thanks all, this is so useful. I'm going to be looking at lots of different areas I think as I do want a new challenge - education may be an area but I also want a bit of a break from schools! I'll look at all the links posted and take a bit of time to digest it all :) I'll ask around my friends and see what people's experience is. As I said, I've got the next couple of years where we can't afford for me to work during the day due to nursery costs, so anything I can do in the meantime is useful, and then I can look to apply for jobs when DD2 starts school.