You may already have realised that employers are a lot less interested in your degree than they are in your experience: the difficulty lies in getting the experience! You can get a certain amount of experience while still studying, and you should without fail choose a dissertation topic that is relevant to the career you would like to have. Your dissertation is far and away the most important element of your course as far as employability goes, because it is what distinguishes you from all the other thousands of graduates who will leave university this year.

Other ways of getting experience include finding a part-time job that is relevant to your career, and volunteering to help a charity. Most small charities have a long-term problem with their marketing, and are grateful for any help: they won’t pay you, but they can give you a reference and you will have the beginning of a CV if you have set up a fundraising event, planned a promotional campaign, or designed a website for them. Having something concrete to show a potential employer is basic to getting a job.

Most marketers start their careers in personal selling or in retail because these jobs give you direct experience of dealing with customers, which is of course the basis of marketing. You are very unlikely to leave university and go straight into a job as a brand manager (as might have happened thirty years ago). If you aren’t prepared to go out and sell, or you don’t like dealing with people, you might want to think about a career in something other than marketing!

First, retail. There is a cliché about graduates ending up stacking shelves in a supermarket: in fact, graduates don’t end up stacking shelves, they start out stacking shelves but quickly move on in the organisation. Everybody who works for a major supermarket has stacked shelves, worked on the checkout, worked in the warehouse, and so forth because you cannot expect to manage staff who do those jobs without having done them yourself. It is far from being a dead-end job: even Sir Terence Leahy, former managing director of Tesco, started out by stacking shelves. The same applies to working for any major retailer whether it’s fashion, household appliances, or food.

Second, personal selling. Nowadays, this might mean working in a call centre but could also mean selling products such as life insurance or home improvements. It would certainly be possible for you to work in these areas while you are still studying, and if you can possibly do so it will add tremendously to your employability at the end of the course. Personal selling will greatly improve your people skills as well, even if you don’t become the world’s greatest salesperson. Because many people (not you, of course) find personal selling a bit daunting there are plenty of jobs around.

A third possibility exists if you are reasonably capable of coping with maths. You might look at a career in marketing research. Nowadays most commercial marketing research tends to be qualitative, so you will need good people skills and also be a listener rather than a talker. You should definitely prepare for this by choosing the right dissertation topic.

A fourth possibility which relatively few people consider is starting your own business. If you have a good idea, and can raise the money to start (or better still, figure out a way to do it without needing money), then you could be just fine.

 

Sources of jobs

It has been well said that it is not what you know, it’s who you know. This isn’t to imply that somebody gives you a job because you are an old mate - what it means is that people will sometimes let you know if there might be a job going for which you should apply. This is pretty much how I have got every job I have ever had.

Therefore, you should put yourself in a position where you will meet people who might know about job availability. Join the Chartered Institute of Marketing and go to the regional meetings. Talk to people there, and volunteer to help with things - get yourself on committees, volunteer to help with administration, in fact do anything that brings you into contact with practitioners. Become an intern - OK, it’s usually unpaid and is often seen as exploitative - but it helps move you up the scale in terms of people knowing who you are and what you can do, and it adds to your CV.

There are sources of job advertisements. Marketing Week, The Marketer, and other practitioner magazines carry job advertisements, and of course you can go on-line, but most of these jobs tend to be for people with experience and a track record, which you probably don’t have.

 

The following websites specialise in marketing jobs:

http://www.simplymarketingjobs.co.uk

http://www.totaljobs.com/search/marketing-advertising-pr-jobs

http://www.prospects.ac.uk/types_of_jobs_advertising_marketing_pr.htm

 

For entry-level jobs in retail or sales, you should probably look in your local paper (or on its website, of course).

Finally, don’t be put off by the apparent shortage of jobs. There is a continuing shortage of skills, and most people have jobs, so it can’t be impossible! The main thing to remember is that good things do not come to those who wait - good things come to those who go out and find them!

Good luck!

Jim