Market-ING Things

(xkcd.com)

Marketers who remain in the general industry of advertising and marketing depend on one solitary adage when it comes to finding and keeping good jobs: market yourself first. It’s a fairly obvious concept particularly when it comes down to job hunting. But it goes beyond that somewhat. Marketers have to continuously maintain their image and reputation as it can weigh quite heavily towards your future in the industry. So that’s what we do: what we were trained to do. We find ways of applying a seemingly unrelated skill into a feature of ourselves. We advertise, we market, we brand ourselves. Above all: we talk. It’s my personal opinion that the majority of skilled marketers could get a job regardless of experience (within reason) if they are able to get to a face-to-face interview portion. The sheer volume of research we’ve done regarding personalities, consumer behavior, changing messages to match the audience, etc, gives us a distinct advantage when it comes to charm. However, there is a very challenging obstacle we must first face: Human Resources. HR has a lot of the same personality training and the like as us, which means that they can usually get an idea as to when someone’s being insincere. To put it in the words of Michael Scott (The Office): “I believe that the department is a breeding ground for monsters.”

Man, I’m feeling all over the place with this one. Anyway, speaking back to the image of marketers, I graduated recently. Naturally, the marketing department all sat together as preordained by the program. We were without a doubt the rowdiest and most difficult of the bunch. We’re the ones who bring in numerous beach balls and balloons, jeer at the ushers for confiscating them, generously passing around the albeit unsanitary communal water bottles, do the wave numerous times during the ceremony eventually getting multiple other departments to participate. We were always a troublesome band of brigands, but we always had fun.

Cheers, guys.