Marketing Yourself for a Marketing Position
By Sayaka Seino
There's a great demand for marketing jobs right now because business and organizations have to promote their interest. Competition is heavy because the positions are marked with high expectations and high salaries, which can be six-figure incomes including commissions, bonuses, and strong salaries. Therefore it's essential to craft a top notch resume that is often geared to a specific employer. It should present relevant information quickly and clearly, which is organized in sections to highlight your abilities. Those sections should include Summary of Qualifications, Education, Skills, and Experience, with added areas for Volunteer Work if it applies. Emphasize your transferable skills. Place your strongest selling points first, and remember a resume is a tool to market your abilities and to get that important interview. Skills a marketer should possess include creativity, a solid working knowledge of computer software, an overachieving, driven and competitive personality, strong interpersonal communication skills, and the ability to learn new things quickly and easily in order to apply them immediately.

There's a great demand for marketing jobs right now because nearly every business and organization needs to be able to advertise themselves. However, there is also plenty of heavy competition because the positions are marked with high expectations. Marketing jobs usually come with high salaries, most of which offer six figure incomes through commissions, bonuses, and strong base salaries. Because there is so much demand and competition for marketing jobs, it is absolutely vital that you craft a top notch resume when applying for a marketing position.

When creating a marketing resume that is geared specifically to the employer you are hoping to work for, consider the following key points:

• Your resume should be concise and to the point, effectively presenting relevant information quickly and clearly.
  
  
• Make sure that your resume includes all of the information your potential employer is looking for, which usually means including an Objective, Summary of Qualifications, Education, Skills, and Experience section. You may also choose to include sections on Volunteer Work and Extra-Curricular Activities, but only if they apply and contain transferable skills for the new career path you are hoping to take.
  
  
• Your skills should be connected to your work and education history.
  
  
• Your strongest selling points should be presented first. If you are fresh out of college with a degree but do not have much relevant real world experience, present your Education section before your Experience section. If you’ve been in marketing for a decade and have more real world experience than educational background, present your Experience and Skills section before your Education section.
  

The skills section of your resume should be written and organized carefully. There are choice words and ways to describe qualities and skills that will help your resume to stand out above the competition. Skills a marketer should possess include creativity, a solid working knowledge of computer software, an overachieving, driven and competitive personality, strong interpersonal communication skills, and the ability to learn new things quickly and easily in order to apply them immediately. If you can convey through your resume that these skills are all in your arsenal, you will stand out to potential employers.

When writing the qualifications section of your resume, there is a difference between offering the bare minimum and going above and beyond to prove your capabilities as a marketer. You should have a high school diploma but this is only really enough if you have an abundance of real world experience to override the lack of education. A Bachelor's or Master's degree in business and marketing will jump start your marketing career even if you don’t have enough relevant experience yet.

When describing your qualifications, use terminology that shows potential employers you have an excellent working knowledge of the industry. Use intelligent language that shows your understanding of the marketing field, but don’t go overboard. Include only information that is transferable to the specific job you are applying for, such as ability to communicate with clients and colleagues and proficiency in copywriting. If a previous job had you working behind a register in a retail outlet or packing boxes in a shipping warehouse, those skills would not be worth incorporating into your resume because they will not transfer into your new line of work.

Your marketing resume should be concise and to the point. If you can fit all of the most important and most relevant information onto one page, you’re probably succeeding at including only what matters. If you’re applying for a marketing position in a large corporation, try to include skills, background, and qualifications that specifically apply to the position you want, rather than including a lot of general and less relevant information.

The goal in creating a resume for a marketing position is to stand out from the crowd and get noticed. You need to catch the eye of potential employers, which means custom tailoring a resume to meet the needs of the job they are looking to fill. After all, being able to market yourself well is good evidence of the marketing you’d be able to do for the company. Marketing jobs are in high demand and competition can be overwhelming; therefore, the more you stand out, the better your chances will be to score the job of your dreams.