Whether you're just starting out in the world of work or changing careers, getting your first job in digital marketing can be overwhelming; it's hard to know where to look and how to prove your knowledge.
It can be difficult to demonstrate your skills without prior experience, but there are things that you can do to demonstrate you can apply your skills in practice.
In today's 'So' video, we're breaking down the essential factors that will help you launch your digital marketing career, so by the end of this video, you're more confident in what employers are looking for and how to stand out.
If you have any questions you would like answered as part of our 'So' series, please get in touch and let us know.
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Transcription:
So, how can I get my first job in digital marketing?
I mean, if someone is trying to get their first job, the challenge you've got is three things; it's what qualifications have you got to show what you know? What experience do you have? And that's normally where the problem is. And then what examples can you demonstrate of things that you've done?
So, why don't we start with the experience then?
This is the chicken egg situation. You've come out from school, you've come out from university, you've come from a different career in a completely different industry, or maybe been in marketing but not in digital marketing, and you decide you want to move into this area, and then people go, well how much experience have you got?
And the answer's none. So we have to get past that friction, and I would just look at as three scales. One is qualifications. One is experience. One is the examples. And if one's on zero, the others have kind of got to be got to be higher up from that point of view. So no experience. It's not the end of the world. There's other things you can do.
So, what about qualifications then?
So that's one thing you could do. You could say, right, I have got a great qualification that maybe is a degree or a master's degree or a CIM level 6 qualification to say, I know what I'm doing and this demonstrates that.
My issue as an employer is that a qualification is great and it shows your dedication to studying and that you can go through a series of hoops to jump through, but I would argue it doesn't really mean you know what you're doing. You may do, you may be brilliant, but you may not do because you can tick the boxes but not be practical. So you've got to then combine that with something else at that stage.
So, what about examples?
That's where this comes in. So no experience. Great. Hopefully have a qualification of some description, that could be an online certificate or something like that. But I want to see examples then of what you've done. It doesn't need to be in a job, but it could be that you built your own website, set up a blog, set up a podcast. You’ve created a social media account, a YouTube account and you’ve grown its following, you’ve iterated the content, looked at the analytics.
You’ve done some sort of project, it doesn't need to make money, that demonstrates you have applied this stuff in practice. And I think the reality is you've got to try and combine those things. Experience on its own, we've got tons of examples, naturally, because you've done something. Qualifications on their own, probably not going to be as trusted.
If you've got huge amounts of examples without qualification, that could also work as well. Because you aren't qualified, but I don't really care because you can demonstrate you know what you're doing.
Let's try and do this in the real world in a commercial way as well. I got one of my big breaks in my career in skincare, and I created a skincare blog for men. It was a sideline project at the time I was working for a sailing academy, but I really wanted this job. Now that's something I'd done and was able to talk about at the interview that none of the other candidates had.
So very often when you're going for a particular role, everyone else is in the same boat. They're all lacking the experience. It's all about showing to the employer, actually, I'm really hungry for this. I'm really passionate about this. I mean, I had some other things up my sleeve, like Daniel and I were already doing the podcast, right? None of the other candidates were doing a podcast on digital marketing. So I had lots that I could talk about and share and talk about experts like, doing a podcast every month, as we were back then, hugely useful, because actually, it forced me to learn, it forced me to carry on having conversations with people and finding out about new things, because there's always that pressure.
I didn't back then have a ton of experience, necessarily, like I'd work for one organization, but all these little extra things, built up a picture of here's somebody that's enthusiastic; what most employers are after.
So, do you have any other tips for securing the first job?
I think really to what Ciaran said is differentiate yourself in some way, right? Because if everyone's come out and got a degree, all you're on is an even playing field now, so you want to try and show that you have done something different by applying this, and the nice thing about this industry is there's so many opportunities for doing that; podcasts, YouTube channels, you can create something and you can say, this is the thing I did, this is what I learned from it.
Does it get many listeners? No, it doesn't, but that's okay, because I've learned X, Y, and Z from doing it, and I would do this differently going forward. So don't think you've got to build a YouTube channel of 10 million followers, not at all. If you've got a handful of followers, it's fine, just to show I've applied it, I've built it, this is what I learned, this is what I'm going to do differently.
Don’t forget. It's not just about being a robot and doing all this stuff. I want to know the human side as well. You know, don't don't neglect things like sports that you play because that shows you're a team player. Bringing another side that makes you present an all-rounded person. Don't just go career, career, career, because it can get a bit boring.
And it depends on the team fit, right? I think that's it. It’s kind of understanding what that organization and team needs, and then see how you can demonstrate that from being a team player, from having an interest in the environment, whatever it might be. That stuff is all stuff that's going to come through and help you get that first job.