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Careers in Marketing One of the most important decisions in your life is deciding upon your career. Not only will a career choice affect your income and lifestyle, but it also will have a major impact on your happiness and self-fulfillment. Probably the most difficult part of job hunting is deciding exactly what type of work you would like. Many students have had no working experience other than summer jobs, so they are not sure what career to pursue. Too often, college students and their parents rush toward occupational fields that seem to offer the highest monetary payoff or are currently "hot," instead of looking at the long run over a forty-to fifty-year working life. One straightforward approach to deciding what type of job to undertake is to do a "self-assessment." This involves honestly asking yourself what your skills, abilities, and interests really are and then identifying occupational fields that match up well with your personality profile. Some students prefer to take various vocational aptitude tests to help identify their interests and abilities. Your college's placement office or psychology department can tell you about the availability of these tests. EXHIBIT A-1 How to do a
Self-Assessment When it is time to look for a job, it is important
that you have a good idea of your personal needs, capabilities,
characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses. The idea is to prepare, so
you will be able to market yourself the best you can. The following
questions will help you analyze what is important to you in choosing
the kind of work you will do and the kind of employer for whom you
will work: 1. What do I do best?
Are these activities related to people, things, or data? 2. Do I communicate better orally
or in writing? 3. Do I consider myself a leader
of a team or a group? a. Do
I see myself as an active participant in a team or group? b. Do
I prefer to work by myself? c. Do
I prefer working under supervision? 4. Do I work well under pressure? 5. Do I like taking
responsibility? Or would I rather follow directions? 6. Do I enjoy new products and
activities? Or would I rather follow a regular routine? 7. When I am working, which of the
following things are most important? a. Working
for a regular salary? b. Working
for a commission? c. Working
for a combination of both? 8. Do I prefer to work a regular 9
a.m.-to-5 p.m. schedule? 9. Will I be willing to travel
more than half the time? 10. What kind of work environment do I
prefer? a. Indoors
or outdoors? b. Urban
setting (population over a million)? c. Rural
community? 11. Would I prefer to work for a large
organization? 12. Am I willing to move? 13. Where do I want to be in three years? Five years? Ten years? Starting in a marketing job is one of the best routes to the top of any organization. More CEOs come from sales and marketing backgrounds than from any other field. As examples, Lee Iacocca (Chrysler), Phil Lippincott (Scott Paper), John Akers (IBM), John Sparks (Whirlpool), and Bruno Bich (Bic Pen) came up through sales and marketing. Typically, a college graduate enters the marketing field via a sales position, then moves to sales supervisor, and next sales manager at the district, regional, and national levels. Individuals who prefer to advance through the ranks of marketing management usually make a career move from sales into product or brand management or another marketing job after serving for a couple of years in the initial sales position. You can use many of the basic concepts of marketing introduced in this book to get the career you want by marketing yourself. The purpose of marketing is to create exchanges that satisfy individual as well as organizational objectives, and a career is certainly an exchange situation for both you and an organization. The purpose of this appendix is to help you market yourself to prospective employers by providing some helpful tools and information. AVAILABLE CAREERS Marketing careers have a bright outlook into the
next century. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that
employment in marketing fields will grow 25 percent by the year 2010.
Many of these increases will be in the areas of sales, public
relations, retailing, advertising, marketing research, and product
management. Sales There are more opportunities in sales than in any
other area of marketing. Sales positions vary greatly among companies.
Some selling positions focus more on providing information; others
emphasize locating potential customers, making presentations to
committees, and closing the sale. Compensation, often salary plus
commission, sets few limits on the amount of money a person can make
and therefore offers great potential. Sales positions can be found in
many organizations, including manufacturing, wholesaling, retailing,
insurance, real estate, financial services, and many other service
businesses. Public Relations Public relations firms help create an image or a
message for an individual or organization and communicate it
effectively to a desired audience. All types of firms, profit and
nonprofit organizations, individuals, and even countries employ public
relations specialists. Communication skills, both written and oral,
are critical for success in public relations. Retailing Retail careers require many skills. Retail
personnel may manage a sales force or other personnel, select and
order merchandise, and be responsible for promotional activities,
inventory control, store security, and accounting. Large retail stores
have a variety of positions, including store or department manager,
buyer, display designer, and catalog manager. Advertising Many organizations employ advertising specialists.
Advertising agencies are the largest employers; however,
manufacturers, retailers, banks, radio and television stations,
hospitals, and insurance agencies all have advertising departments.
Creativity, artistic talent, and communication skills are a few of the
attributes needed for a successful career in advertising. Account
executives serve as a liaison between the advertising agency and the
client. Account executives must have a good knowledge of business
practices and possess excellent sales skills. Marketing Research The most rapid growth in marketing careers is in
marketing research. Marketing research firms, advertising agencies,
universities, private firms, nonprofit organizations, and governments
provide growing opportunities in marketing research. Researchers
conduct industry research, advertising research, pricing and packaging
research, new-product testing, and test-marketing. Researchers are
involved in one or more stages of the research process, depending on
the size of the organization conducting the research. Marketing
research requires knowledge of statistics, data processing and
analysis, psychology, and communication. Product Management Product managers coordinate all or most of the activities required to market a product. Thus, they need a general knowledge of all the aspects of marketing. Product managers are responsible for the successes and failures of a product and are compensated well for this responsibility. Most product managers have previous sales experience and skills in communication. The position of product manager is a major step in the career path of top-level marketing executives. COMPENSATION Many college graduates want to know how much they
will get paid in their new career. Although this is a topic that
should be considered in your selection of a company, it should not be
the only one. It is up to you to decide which criteria are most
important in choosing a job. Exhibit A-2 shows the average
compensation range for various marketing positions. The range varies,
depending on your education and preference for a certain geographic
location. In addition to salary, marketing positions may include a
company car, bonuses, and/or expense accounts, forms of compensation
that are not common in other professions. EXHIBIT
A-2 Marketing Positions and Compensation RangesPosition CompensationAdvertising Advertising
media planner
$18,000–$45,000 Assistant
account executive
22,000–$45,000 Account
executive
28,000–$70,000 Account
supervisor
45,000–$80,000 Marketing research Analyst
$ 23,000–$38,000 Project
director
40,000–$70,000 Research
director
75,000–$125,000 Product management Assistant
product manager
$ 22,000–$38,000 Group manager
40,000–$85,000 Group product
manager
55,000–$135,000 Retailing Trainee
$ 17,000–$25,000 Chain store
manager
25,000–$95,000 Buyer
27,000–$65,000 Department
store manager
35,000–$150,000 Sales Trainee
$ 17,000–$30,000 Real estate
agent
15,000–$140,000 Insurance
agent
19,000–$150,000 Manufacturer’s
representative
25,000–$100,000 Field
salesperson
30,000–$80,000 Sales manager
40,000–$100,000 Securities salesperson 35,000–$400,000 YOUR FIRST MARKETING ASSIGNMENT Marketing yourself to a prospective employer is usually the first big marketing assignment. With your services (as represented by your qualifications, education, training, and personal characteristics) as the product, you must convince prospective employers that they should buy your services over those of many other candidates for the job. All the steps of the marketing and sales process apply: identifying opportunities, developing yourself as a product, prospecting for potential employers, planning your approach to them, approaching with a resume and cover letter, making your sales presentation and demonstrating your qualifications in a personal interview, dealing with objections or giving reasons why the employer should hire you over other candidates, attempting to close the sale by enthusiastically asking for the job and employing appropriate closing techniques, and following up by thanking the prospective employer for the interview and reinforcing a positive impression. The
FAB Student Model The FAB matrix is a device adapted from personal
selling that can help you market yourself to potential employers. FAB,
which stands for Features-Advantages-Benefits, relates your skills to
an employer’s needs by citing the specific benefits you can bring to
that company.(F) People
want benefits, whether they are buying a car or hiring a marketing
graduate to fill a job vacancy. An employer needs information that
indicates how hiring you will specifically benefit the firm. Exhibit A-3 is a model of FAB
for students. The first step in FAB is as critical for you as it is
for the salesperson: determining what the customer needs. In the case
of the employer, the needs are what the job requires or the problems
to be solved. These needs should be listed in order of priority,
starting with the most important. Step 2 matches each need with a
particular feature of the applicant (skill, ability, personality
characteristic, educational attainment). In step 3, you arrange the
needs and features in a FAB matrix, where they become information
points that you can use to construct a cover letter, resume, or
interview presentation. EXHIBIT A-3 The FAB Matrix
You must approach a prospective employer with complete knowledge of that employer’s features and job needs. Using the FAB matrix, you can match features with needs in a systematic, complete, and concise way. Prospecting for a Potential Employer After you have determined what you have to sell to a potential employer (your skills, abilities, interests, and so forth) and identified the type of job you think you would like, you might begin your personal selling process by looking at the College Placement Annual at your college placement office. The College Placement Annual provides a variety of information about prospective employers and lists the organizations according to the types of jobs they have available-for example, advertising, banking, marketing research, and sales. Another very important source is an online search on the WWW. Other sources of information about prospective employers include directories such as those published by Dun and Bradstreet, Standard & Poor's, and trade associations; the annual American Marketing Association membership directory (company listings); the Yellow Pages of telephone books in cities where you would like to live and work; and classified sections of The Wall Street Journal or city newspapers. Before contacting a particular company, look up its annual report and stock evaluation (from Value Line or various other sources) in your college library to learn as much as possible about the company and its prospects for the future. You might also obtain a list of articles on the company from the Business Periodicals Index (BPI). College placement office. Use your college placement office to find out which companies are going to be interviewing on campus on what dates; then sign up for interviews with those companies that seem to best match your job skills and requirements. Usually, the college placement office has books, pamphlets, or files that will give you leads on other prospective employers that may not be interviewing on campus that term. Job-hunting expenses. Although campus interviews are convenient, students seldom get a job without follow-up interviews with more senior managers-usually at company headquarters. These additional interviews generally take a full day and may involve long-distance trips. You should be forewarned that job hunting can be expensive. Printing your resume, typing cover letters, buying envelopes and stamps, making long-distance telephone calls, incurring travel expenses, and buying new clothing will require a sizable outlay of money. Even though most companies eventually reimburse you for all expenses incurred on a company visit, they seldom pay in advance. Reimbursement can take several weeks, so you may encounter some cash-flow problems over the short run. The
Internet. The Internet is the fastest growing approach today.
Many companies are taking advantage of this to assist them in
their recruiting efforts. Some
companies even take the Internet to another level and conduct initial
interviews online via videoconferencing. Just like how some companies post jobs on a bulletin board,
there are job posting web sites that companies contact with various
job opportunities. Some
of the more popular job search web sites can be found in Exhibit B-3. These sites also contain information about resume writing,
interviewing, and tips that you can use to secure the job that you
want. Employment agencies. Although many employment agencies receive fees from employers for providing good job candidates, others charge job seekers huge fees (sometimes thousands of dollars) for helping them find jobs. Therefore, make sure you fully understand the fee arrangement before signing up with an employment agency. Some employment agencies may not be worth your time and/or money because they use a programmed approach in helping you write your resume and cover letter and in prospecting for potential employers. Potential employers have seen these "canned" formats and approaches so many times that your personal advertisement (your resume and cover letter) will appear almost indistinguishable from others. The hidden job market. It has been estimated that nearly 80 percent of available jobs are never advertised and never reach employment agency files, so creative resourcefulness often pays off in finding the best jobs. Consider every reasonable source for leads. Sometimes, your professors, deans, or college administrators can give you names and contact persons at companies that have hired recent graduates. Do not be bashful about letting other people know that you are looking for work. Classmates, friends, and business associates of your family may be of help not only directly but also indirectly, acting as extra pairs of eyes and ears alert to job opportunities for you. Planning Your Approach (the Preapproach) After conducting your self-assessment and identifying potential employers looking for people with your abilities and interests, you need to prepare a resume (or personal advertisement) for yourself . Your resume should focus on your achievements to date, your educational background, your work experience, and your special abilities and interests. Some students make the mistake of merely listing their assigned responsibilities on different jobs without indicating what they accomplished on the job. If you achieved something on the job, say it-for example, "Helped computerize office files," "Increased sales in my territory by 10 percent," "Received a 15 percent raise after three months on the job," or "Promoted to assistant store manager after four months." When looking for a job, remember that employers are looking for a track record of achievement; and you must distinguish yourself from those who may have had the same assigned job responsibilities as you did but performed poorly. If your work experience is minimal, consider a "skills" resume, in which you emphasize your particular abilities, such as organizing, programming, or leadership skills, and give supporting evidence whenever you can. Examples of various types of resumes can be found in the College Placement Annual and in various other job-hunting publications that your college business reference librarian can direct you to. Exhibit A-4 gives examples of some Web sites on the WWW that can be used to learn about resume formats. EXHIBIT
A-4 Helpful
WWW Addresses for Job Searches / Resume Writing The Monster board http://www.monster.com JobWeb http://www.jobweb.org Career Mosaic http://www.careermosaic.com ARCHEUS http://www.golden.net/~archeus/reswri.htm Proven Resumes.com http://www.provenresumes.com/ Remember that there is no one correct format for your resume. A little tasteful creativity can help differentiate your resume from countless look-alike resumes. If you are a young college graduate, your resume will usually be only one page long, but do not worry about going to a second page if you have something important to present. One student so blindly followed the one-page resume rule that he left out having served in the military--a fact that is usually viewed very positively by prospective employers, especially if it involved significant leadership responsibilities or work experience. If you know what job you want, you may want to put your job objective near the top of your resume. If you are not sure what job you want or want to send out the same resume for several different jobs, then you can describe your job objective in your cover letter. In the cover letter, a key element is convincing the prospective employer to grant you an interview. Thus, you must talk in terms of the employer's interests, not just your own. You are answering the question: "Why should we hire you?" You may need to send a letter with your resume enclosed to a hundred or more companies to obtain five to ten interviews, so do not be discouraged if you do not get replies from all companies or are told by many companies that there are no present job opportunities. You will probably need only a few interviews and just one job offer to get your career started. Review some of the publications and sources mentioned in the previous section on prospecting (e.g., College Placement Annual, Dun and Bradstreet directories, and annual reports) to learn as much as you can about your prospective employer so that you can tailor your cover letter. Remember, the employer is thinking in terms of the company's needs, not yours. For one example of a resume, see Exhibit A-5. A cover letter is illustrated in Exhibit A-6. Making Your Approach Prospective employers can be approached by mail, telephone, the Internet, or personal contact. Personal contact is best, but this usually requires that you know someone with influence that can arrange an interview for you. Of course, a few enterprising students have devised elaborate and sometimes successful schemes to get job interviews. For example, we know of one young man who simply went to the headquarters of the company he wanted to work for and asked to see the president. Told that the president of the company could not see him, the student said that he was willing to wait until the president had time. This audacious individual went back three different days until the president finally agreed to see him, perhaps mainly out of curiosity about what sort of young man would be so outrageous in his job search. Fortunately for this young man, he had a lot to offer and was able to communicate this to the president, so he was hired. This unorthodox approach shows how far people have gone to impress potential employers, and if you feel comfortable doing it then go ahead. A personal contact within the company certainly can win you some special attention and enable you to avoid competing head-on with the large number of other candidates looking for a job. Most students, however, start their approach in the traditional way by mailing their resume and cover letter to the recruiting department of the company. More recently, students have begun to email their resumes, and some companies are requiring this as a means of screening out applicants that are not computer literate. EXHIBIT A-5 Sample Resume Anthony
F Martinez 5456
W. Covington Drive Valley
Forge, PA 19409 (216)
567-0000
EXHIBIT A-6 Sample Cover Letter Anthony F. Martinez 5456 W. Covington Drive Valley Forge, PA 19409 Ms. Heather Gough District Sales Manager WesTel Communications Company Philadelphia, PA 19404 Dear Ms. Gough: WesTel has been a familiar name to me for many years. My career interest is in sales, and there is no company that I would rather work with than WesTel Communications. I will be graduating this June from Western Pennsylvania University with a BS in marketing and I would like for you to consider me for a job as a sales representative with your company. As you can see in my enclosed resume, I have successfully worked in sales jobs during three of the last four summers. My college course electives (e.g., public speaking, business writing, and public relations) have been carefully selected with my career objective in mind. Even my extracurricular activities in sports and campus organizations have helped prepare me for working with a variety of people and competitive challenges. Will you please grant me an interview so that I can convince you that I'm someone you should hire for your sales team? I'll call you next Thursday afternoon to arrange an appointment at your convenience. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Sincerely, Anthony F. Martinez Enclosure Unless your resume matches a particular need at that time, it will probably be filed away for possible future reference or merely discarded. To try to get around the system, some students send their letter by express mail or mailgram or address it to a key executive, with "Personal" written on the envelope. These students believe that bypassing the company's personnel office will increase the likelihood that their cover letter and resume will be read by someone with authority to hire. Other students send their resume on a CD, and one student in Louisiana sent a King Cake to the recipient of the resume, while another send a packet of Louisiana spices. Using gimmicks, no matter how creative, to get a job interview will offend some executives and thus cause you to be rejected from consideration for a job. But you can probably also be sure that a few executives will admire your efforts and grant you an interview. Only you know how comfortable you feel with different approaches to obtaining a job interview. We advise you not to use an approach that is out of character for you and thus will make you feel awkward and embarrassed. Making Your Sales Presentation Your personal sales presentation will come during the interview with the prospective employer's recruiters or interviewers. To prepare yourself for the personal interview, a pre-interview checklist is found in Exhibit A-7, and a self-preparedness test in Exhibit A-8 Exhibit A-7 Pre Interview Checklist PracticeØ Questions you may be asked Ø Questions you want to ask about the position and organization Ø Role-playing an interview Self-assessment Ø Goals Ø Skills, abilities, accomplishments Ø Work values (important factors you look for in a job) Ø Experiences Ø Personality Research Ø Obtain company literature Ø Write or visit the organization Ø Talk to people familiar with the organization Obtain references Plan ahead Ø Attire to be worn to the interview Ø Directions to the interview site Ø
Time of arrival (get there with at least 5-10 minutes to
spare) Exhibit
A-8 Self
Preparedness Test How
assertive are you (or will you be) as you interview for your
internship position? Listed
below are questions that will help you evaluate yourself: Answer yes
or no to the questions, being honest with yourself.
If you have five or fewer yes answers you still have some work
to do. A good score is
seven or more yes answers.
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