Careers blog written by Hilary Neary, Information Assistant, Careers

If you have already pinpointed marketing as a career you would like to pursue, or you have decided it is a sector that you would like to investigate further then The Marketer is one tool that can help you in your research. The Marketer is the communications website and magazine of The Chartered Institute of Marketing, the UK’s leading professional marketing body.

You may be wondering how a trade magazine which is aimed at people working in marketing roles and who are members of CIM can be of value to someone just starting out and still considering their career options? Here are some ways it can help you:

What will I gain from reading The Marketer?

An insight into the industry.

Apart from keeping the reader up to date with the latest industry trends, talking points and developments, it will give you a feel for the culture of an industry and help you gauge the answers to questions like what type of people work in this industry, what are their backgrounds? Could you fit in, do you feel inspired by their stories and work? There is a feature on the website called ‘My Day’ which profiles a typical working day of a Marketing professional. The profiles range from junior through to senior roles and they’re a  great insight into the daily responsibilities and range of projects that marketers work on as well as giving you a snapshot of the culture of the industry.

Are you a good fit?

You’ll soon get a feel for whether this sector/industry might be something you want to pursue. Are you inspired by the articles, engaged and interested or is it a chore to read? The more research you do, the more likely a career path will become evident to you as you will be able to tell if the work is compatible with your interests, strengths and personality.

Use it to help you prepare for an interview

Use The Marketer to read up on the sector or look up recent news coverage relating to a specific company. You may be able to find out about successful campaigns, what type of marketing they use, and perhaps profiles or interviews from staff. All of the information you can glean from reading The Marketer will enable you to ask better and more informed questions during the interview, and help you craft better answers to interview questions, as you’ll be able to articulate how you’ll fit into the organisation and help it advance its goals.

Use it as part of your toolkit when researching your career path

There is a wealth of information to be found on the Marketer website but some of the most useful bits for students or new graduates considering marketing as a career include:

• Job Adverts – you can use The Marketer to research typical starting roles for graduates. Use the job adverts section to see what types of skills and work experience employers are looking for. You can then use this information to start building up the type of experience that marketing roles require and begin to think about how you can articulate the experience and skills you already have, to meet the job criteria.

• Knowledge Centre – increase your marketing knowledge and become familiar with emerging trends and successful marketing campaigns. The Knowledge Centre and How To section includes guides, case studies and masterclasses on a variety of marketing issues including tips from the top and dos and don’ts. This may not feel relevant to you at this stage but reading some of the articles gives you a feel for the issues, hot topics and themes in the marketing world at the moment as well as the terminology and abbreviations that accompany these themes.

• Masterclasses & Webinars – the free masterclasses and webinars explore marketing issues in more depth and increase your knowledge of particular types of marketing, for example, video marketing, viral marketing or how to adapt marketing methods to appeal to different audiences.

• In Practice – this section of the website brings together profiles, interviews with marketers and the My day feature where someone working in the industry describes a typical day in their job. The profiles focus on top level Directors and Heads of marketing and provide a discussion of the strategies employed by big brands to market their products.

The Marketer is definitely worth a read if you are interested in marketing as a career. Research is key to helping you gauge what career might suit you and the Marketer can provide not only news but a snapshot of the culture, issues affecting the industry and what the key emerging trends in the industry are. This will give you a competitive edge at interview because the more well researched you are means you’re likely to be better able to articulate your knowledge and enthusiasm.

Don’t confine your research just to one source however. Our advertising, marketing and PR job sector pages on the Careers website provide a great starting point to finding out about careers in this sector and provide some ideas of actions you can take to give yourself the best chance of securing a graduate role in the sector.

www.themarketer.co.uk/