Marketing Your Way to a Marketing Job

I love hearing stories about how people got a job or a new client in the marketing industry because almost every story is unique.  It seems like whenever someone gets their dream job or client, the story includes a chance meeting, a connection through a long lost friend or a creative way to get the decision maker’s attention.

Those stories are entertaining, but not surprising because:

• More people than ever are looking for work or new clients and the competition is stiff.
• A simple resume just doesn’t do it anymore.  If you’re playing the numbers game and just blasting out as many resumes as possible, you might as well be trying to contact the potential employer/client by way of telegraph.
• Potential employers don’t have time to read resumes.  At best, they skim the resume for one or two key points.  Potential clients aren’t even giving your self-promotion materials that much time.

I really like this story of a guy who tweeted his way into a job at CP+B.  Alex Bogusky says in this piece that it was as simple as this guy getting their attention in a way that was consistent with his own personal brand.  So in other words, this guy activated his job search as a very specific and niche marketing campaign.

Although this hasn’t resulted in a job, I found a guy named Brandon Doyle on Facebook who was looking for a very specific job with my current employer.  He took a chance and used Facebook advertising to get my attention.  Not that I pay attention to Facebook ads, but it caught my eye and I loved the fact that he found a different way to get our attention.

Those are two really creative and effective ways to get attention.  If you’re looking for a new gig, what are you doing to get the attention of your dream employer in your job search?

Tips for Getting an Entry-level Marketing Job

If you’ve read some of my previous posts, you might know that I’m not all that impressed with my college education.  One of the reasons is because I don’t think I was properly prepared to find a job in field of study.  I distinctly remember my Advertising professor telling us that Advertising Sales jobs are a great way to get into Account Management at an ad agency. Um, not true.

Throughout my career, I’ve been really lucky in being able to find jobs that I love, but I’ve had to work for it.  Being that I’ve had some good gigs, I often get asked by younger marketers and recent college grads how to break into the industry.  It can be tough at times because marketing is one of those “need experience to get experience” deals, but here’s some advice to those of you trying to “get a foot in the door”.

1. Write a blog. Things have changed.  Resumes are old school.  Sharing your thoughts, ideas, work and accomplishments online is how it’s done now.  I’m way more impressed with young marketers that proactively share ideas.
2. Promote your blog to people you want to work for. I love finding marketing blogs written by college students or recent grads.  The content come from a different perspective and is way less boring than the stodgy stuff the old school thinkers come up with.
3. Be a specialist. It used to be that employers looked for “generalists” – people that could do a little bit of everything.  Now, we’re in an age of specialization, so carve out your own niche and specialize in a particular area.  The narrower the focus, the better because you will eventually be the perfect fit for your perfect job.
4. Target some influencers and get a meeting with them. Figure out who could help you nail down that job and invite them out to lunch.  It’s a perfect opportunity to informally introduce yourself and make an impression.  Plus, you would be amazed at how much people will do to help someone out once they meet them face-to-face.  Knowing someone over email or phone doesn’t have nearly the same impact.
5. Find a field/mobile marketing job. There are a lot of agencies that are hiring recent college grads to go out and represent Fortune 500 clients and activate marketing programs.  This is a great way to get some big names on resume (or blog!) and learn about consumer behaviors first hand.
6. Start your own gig. No better time than the present!  And let’s face it – it’s a lot tougher to start your own gig when you’re pulling down a good salary and/or have kids.

My New Resume

Screw resumes, they’re obsolete.

I’m not looking for a job or anything, but when I do, my resume will just tell people to “google me” and give them some search words to get them started.

If I was hiring and received a resume that did this, I would be uber impressed. Right off the bat, it would tell me that this candidate has:

• confidence in what other people say about them.
• made an impact their.
• no interest in feeding me a line of bullshit and is the real deal.

Now whether they’re the right fit for the position and has the right skills, that another question. But at least you’ve cut through the clutter.
So here’s my resume. Go ahead. Google me:

• Neal Stewart
• Neal Stewart Pabst
• Neal Stewart Flying Dog

(props to my friend Mandy for sparking this idea)