Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

Sorry to be so frank, but yes. Unless you are going to get a job in the local community (where the Career College is) or in a small small business with a one- or two-person marketing dept, you'll not have much ammunition against more-credentialed marketing candidates.

What to do while in school is a great question, though, and a great opportunity to enhance your credentials. If your courses offer any projects or cases, make them about marketing. If you have the time, help out a local business with its marketing. Build your own website, or launch a blog. Write something about marketing and get it published somewhere reputable.

One other thing. I see this so many times with people who have been in "Sales" for so long. Look back at the work you did, and pull out the instances where you were actually doing "Marketing." Lots of sales people don't give themselves enough credit for doing things like setting up events & tradeshows, getting & qualifying leads, creating brochures, etc. Make sure those types of activities really stand out on your resume so you are not pigeon-holing yourself as the Sales Guy or Gal.

Best of luck with your career.

Dear milsher7,

My dream is to win Powerball.

But as with most dreams, my dream will remain a vague, hither and yon cloud of ungraspable steam unless I set out with a plan and execute it.

A ten year background in sales ideally places you to understand the whole point of marketing: which is to sell.

Breaking into an area that might appear closed is, I'll admit, a challenge, but it's not impossible.

The first thing you need to do is figure out which BIT of the trade you're most interested in and could contribute the most to because the term "marketing" means different things to different people.

So, it might make sense for you to figure out what the term "marketing" means TO YOU. With me?

The GREAT thing is that you're taking ACTION. You'd be stunned how many people cannot or will not take this simple step. Their self limiting beliefs hold their dreams hostage and they wind up doing nothing.

Now then, social stigma and all that. Here's a question for you:

How many people that might PUT you in the "sub-par degree" pile would you want to work for?

To my mind (as addled as it might appear at times), what one DOES with one's education is of far more importance than where one OBTAINED it.

I'm from a blue collar background in the mid north west of the U.K. I was the first member of my family to go to college. I've worked with people from all kinds of educational and socioeconomic backgrounds—from Ph.Ds, MAs, MBAs, and labourers. My Dad passed away nearly five years ago and he left school when he was 14. Although not "book smart" in the classic sense of the term, he was worldly wise and whip smart in ways that would have stumped a roomful of rocket scientists.

I think what matters more about your résumé is that it gets you an interview, which is, after all, its primary function.

What can you do to beef up your résumé while you're still in school?

Start a blog; set up a small, online business that sells to a specific niche; learn how to build websites; offer your services to local business people; build a reputation for helping people solve their problems; contribute to this forum; write a book; volunteer in the marketing department of a local non profit; write pieces for your local news paper.

What will these things do? They'll sharpen your skills, get your name out into the world, build a body of evidence that you talk the talk AND walk the walk, and they'll build your credibility by creating social proof.

But the biggest favour you can do yourself is to see your self real, to see your self succeeding, doing the things you dream of doing. Ninety percent of the battle is not telling the world that you know what the hell you're talking about, it's telling and CONVINCING yourself that you know what you're talking about.

Now, go and apply your metatarsal to the gluteus maximus of your future!

I hope this helps. Good luck to you.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA