7 Most Effective Ways To Showcase Your Talent As A Beginner Marketer

Every business needs a marketing strategy to help it find clients and become successful. Consequently, many companies – big and small – are looking to hire professional marketers to develop their marketing strategies. But while there may be more marketing jobs available than there are candidates to fill them, companies are still picky about the skills and experience they expect beginner marketers to have.

Why are companies being picky if there is so much competition to hire someone? An employer’s hesitation in hiring a candidate usually comes down to experience. Due to the popularity of social media, there is a surplus of entry-level marketers with minimal commercial expertise.

No business wants to take someone on that they have to spend loads of money and time on training. Instead, they would prefer to hold out for a marketing professional with experience who can hit the ground running.

Top 7 Tips For Landing Your First Job in Marketing

The first rule of marketing is to know your audience. Once you understand your target market, you can get their attention and deliver a call to action. The call to action is vital; this is what makes your target customer take the action you want them to take.

When you’re trying to land your first job, this is what that process looks like:

1. Identify your audience: The hiring manager of your dream job in a top company.
2. How to get their attention: Make your CV so good that they have to hire you.
3. Your call to action: Hire me!

So now you understand how the process works, here’s how to put that into practice:

Background research

Find out what jobs are available in the present market and which of them appeal to you. Don’t just focus on the job you want right now. Consider where you want to be in five years or even ten. Ask yourself questions like:

• What kind of salary do you want to earn?
• Do you want to be part of an in-house team or work in a marketing agency?
• Might you have a preference for marketing products or services?
• Would you prefer working from home or being office-based?
• Does working for a tech start-up or a large corporation appeal more?
• Which marketing channel appeals to you the most? You might consider:
  • Search engine optimisation
  • Email marketing
  • Social media management
  • Video marketing
  • Paid advertising

In this day and age, it’s not good enough to only understand one element of marketing. You don’t need to be proficient in every area of digital marketing, but you should at least be aware of how each one works in principle. Beginner marketers should also know how the different channels can work together and complement each other.

Find what you’re good at and become great at it

Don’t be tempted to try and master every marketing channel. Trying to learn every tool in the box will only burn you out.

Instead, find one marketing channel that captures your interest the most and try to master it. Once you feel confident, you might consider adding another string to your bow.

Build a portfolio of personal projects & volunteer work

Creating content is a great way to display your talents; along the way, you will build a portfolio of your work. Employers like to see evidence that you are as brilliant as you say.

Generating an online portfolio showcasing your marketing success can demonstrate that you’d be a fantastic team member. How can you do this if you’re struggling to find a job?

Look for opportunities on social media. For example, a conversation thread on Twitter or Reddit might highlight a problem you can solve. Or you might find a creative challenge to take part in on Instagram.

Blogging or vlogging about your learning journey, or the thought process behind your work is a brilliant way to showcase your skills.

It’s also worth walking around your local area to see what opportunities are available. Ask local businesses for free assistance with a marketing campaign. This lets you get real-world experience to showcase your talent. If the project is successful, it may lead to a job!

Create quality content

There is a lot of content on the internet, but only a tiny percentage is high quality. Therefore, creating quality content that ranks for a specific search term is bound to impress employers.

Creating blogs or videos enables you to show your skills in any marketing area. For example, a graphic designer might create a website to showcase their projects. Or better still, create infographics or videos to explain their creative process. Visual content published on the internet gives you credibility and makes you a more attractive candidate for marketing jobs. 

For instance, let’s say you want to get into SEO. Writing a blog post providing tips and advice to help other people improve their marketing strategies could help your career in two ways:

1. Your content might draw the attention of business owners looking for marketing advice. Finding yours at a high position in Google proves that it delivers actual results. As such, they may contact you and hire you because they trust you to deliver excellent results.

2. Your blog or YouTube channel gives you examples to highlight on your CV or discuss during interviews, and it also allows hiring managers to go away and check you out. An online presence potentially strengthens your job applications and increases your chances of being chosen over rival candidates. 

The delicious irony of the situation is that being hired off the back of your content is also a brilliant display of content marketing! You are evidence to your new employers that content is a successful way to get noticed.

Grow a social media following

Even if social media is not your thing, it can be hugely advantageous for a marketer to have a social presence. 25.6% of UK marketers consider social media to be the most successful channel right now.

Social media gives you a platform to showcase whatever projects you’re working on and helps you grow your professional network. LinkedIn is the platform to focus on for career growth, with many marketers using it to find jobs.

Use analytics to prove your success

Most marketing platforms provide free analytics to help you understand what works and doesn’t. Let’s say you create a website and use Twitter to promote it. A business account gives you access to analytics that will provide insights into the content your audience loves and what turns them off.

When applying for jobs, you can discuss what kinds of posts drive engagement and how you encourage followers to take action. Understanding analytics and talking about them in a job interview gives hiring managers evidence of successful marketing efforts. With skills like these, it will be hard for them to turn you down!

Add certifications to your CV

When you don’t have a job, it can be hard to justify spending a lot of money on qualifications. However, you don’t just need to at paid courses run by the Digital Marketing Institute, for example. You might also consider gaining industry-recognised certificates such as Google analytics.

A Few Final Thoughts on How Beginner Marketers Can Showcase Their Skills

When your CV feels like a blank page, filling it up with the experience you’ve created can be a considerable challenge. However, once you get started, you’ll soon discover how quickly self-promotion can have a snowball effect on your career. What’s more, if you can market yourself to an employer, they will have confidence in you promoting their products and services.

If you feel like you’re doing a lot of work and getting nothing but rejection letters, it might be worth having a chat with a reputable recruitment consultant. They might be able to give you tips on how you can improve your CV and reach your goals quicker.

Recruitment consultants also spend a great deal of time networking so they know which companies are most likely to consider hiring someone with minimal commercial experience.

After reading this article, we hope you have a better idea of how to market your skills and land your first marketing job. If you found it helpful, please share it on social media.