How to get your first Digital Marketing job?

Getting your first job Digital Marketing, as a fresh graduate or later in your career, is always the most difficult one to get. Recruiters or hiring managers tend to offer the contract to a candidate that might already have experience in Digital Marketing, and/or experience within the industry or similar type of organisation. But what if you can’t offer that at this stage in your career? If you do other things well, like demonstrating your passion for the industry, then opportunities will come your way. This blog post will give you insights on how you’ll become more employable for a Digital Marketing role.

In our first blog post we’ve explained What it’s like to work in Digital Marketing, and that should give you some top-line insights in tasks and responsibilities of a Digital Marketer. Let’s break down those tasks, specially for a first-time Digital Marketing role. You’d have to understand what a (junior) Digital Marketing role is about first, to know how to make yourself employable for such a job.

 

A typical first role in Digital Marketing

As part of a marketing course at university, you probably learn about marketing strategies, frameworks like customer buying funnels, and much more top-line marketing theories. Don’t expect to apply that knowledge you’ve gained at university straight away on your first day of your first Digital Marketing role and create a strategy document. Depending on organisation type and size, as explained in this article about Digital Marketing roles, a junior role will likely consist out of more executional tasks. Think about tasks like conducting research, campaign management, content creation, reporting, and sharing insights with internal and external stakeholders. A starter Digital Marketing role is often about implementing, managing, and reporting on ad hoc or always-on (ongoing) Digital Marketing activities.

 

Skills, knowledge, and experience

To be able to execute those tasks well, recruiters and hiring managers require candidates who can demonstrate suitable skills and knowledge.

• Desired skills:
  • Data analysis and visualisation
  • Basic Excel skills, including creating pivot tables and advanced formulas
  • Communication and presentation skills
  • Copy writing and graphic design
  • Budget management
• Basic knowledge about:
  • Marketing & Sales concepts and frameworks
  • Digital Marketing platforms, its targeting options, bidding systems, and metrics
  • Web analytics

Note that this list of skills and knowledge covers the essence of most Digital Marketing roles, and additional or different skills and knowledge might be required based on the industry and organisation type.

If you can add relevant experience to that list of skills and knowledge, that could help you find a Digital Marketing role even sooner. Experiences can be gained via regular work experience in non-digital marketing roles, but also via practical university projects or assignments, internships, traineeships, company days, workshops, volunteering, and more.

Now you know what’s required of candidate for a Digital Marketing role, you can focus on developing those skills, knowledge, and gaining work experience.

 

Finding Digital Marketing jobs

When you feel like you’re ready to apply for a Digital Marketing role, the next step would be to find a suitable role. You can find those at the regular job listing websites like Seek.com.au and LinkedIn Jobs. Those roles might receive a lot of applications which statistically decreases your chances, so therefore you could consider approaching companies within your own network and also outside of your own network. If you know someone working for a company that you’d see yourself working for as well, approach that person and ask if he/she could introduce you to relevant people within the company like an HR manager. However, if you’d like to work for a company of which you don’t know anyone who could introduce you there, or a company without any relevant job openings, you can always send an open application for a role that might come up in the future. Don’t see an open application as a shot in the dark, as many companies don’t advertise their vacancies online. Also, hiring managers would admire your assertiveness of sending an open application, so there is still a good chance you’ll be invited for an interview.

 

How to improve your chances of a job interview?

You only get one change to make a first impression. It’s cliché but true. To enhance your chances of a job interview, you’d have to make an impression. You can make a good first impression in the first contact with a recruiter or hiring manager – that is in your cover letter and resume. Make sure you stand out from the crowd by using an impressive design or lay-out of your resume – “dress to impress”. In your resume you can share something unique about yourself which could be anything from an unusual hobby to a fun-fact (that impacted your study or career choices), so that it’s easier for the reader to remember you and be memorable about that thing that makes you different. To add, and this might be the most important element, demonstrate your passion and drive. If you’re keen to get that Digital Marketing role, you would have completed some (online) Digital Marketing courses, gained relevant work experience, or shared some content publicly on social media about Digital Marketing. In short, your resume should highlight your competitive advantages.

 

Some extra job application tips:

•  You can do to stand out is to send your hard copy resume and cover letter via the mail – that’s something truly unique in this digital age when it’s easier to delete an email than to throw away a hand-out. The addressee would feel excited receiving a nicely printed resume printed on high quality paper.
• Create a short video of yourself in where you introduce yourself and explain why you are a good candidate for this role. This video could take away some uncertainties the recruiter or hiring manager could have about you.
• Consider your online Personal Brand. Before you’ll be invited for an interview, it’s highly likely the recruiter or hiring manager would google your name, so make sure Google only shows content, images, and references that you’d like them to see, and remove anything that could impact their opinion negatively – you can use your common sense to what that might be.

 

Demonstrate your passion

It might feel difficult or challenging to land your first role in Digital Marketing. Consider that there are many jobs out there due to a consistent demand for good Digital Marketers, so there will be lots of opportunities for you to apply. You can increase your chances by demonstrating your passion for the industry and drive to learn which is especially important for junior roles for which experience isn’t the most important requirement.

 

If you’d like some personal support in your job application process, please reach out to Lidy as she’s happy to help talent with kick-starting their Digital Marketing career.

In the following blog post we’ll go deeper into one aspect covered in this article: Digital Marketing self-education. What are resources or online courses that could boost your Digital Marketing knowledge and skills?

 

For comments or questions, please reach out to Lidy (Founder of Lente) via Lidy@LENTE.com.au.