Know-How Exchange : Career/Training

Start focusing on your experience. Get an internship. Volunteer your skills for a local non-profit. Do some original research on an area that personally interests you (and interview prospective employers as part of the research).

I would suggest that you start networking.

Have you heard the expression, "it's not what you know, it's who you know" ?

There is a lot of truth to that.

I second what Jay says. Do what you can to get experience. Part time job, internship, or volunteer work - so long as it has you doing advertising or marketing work and can count as experience.

Nothing you can do about the grades now, so you need to find a way to provide other information that would be attractive to an employer. Would have been a bit better to have started last spring and found a summer internship, but it is never too late to start.

Outside of this, join the local marketing groups (American Marketing Association, Business Marketing Association, etc.) and go to meetings. This goes along the lines of what was said about networking.

I agree with doing internships or volunteering...nobody will care about your grades if you have experience! That's the best way to land a job other then being best friends with the person in charge.

There's a lot of opportunities for internships - some pay, some don't. I would suggest doing one with a non-profit, trust me you'll learn a lot if you approach it the right way. If the non-profit is small and there's no marketing staff, you have a great opportunity to really guide and shape their marketing strategy and use this experience to market your own leadership and capabilities. If you land an internship where there's already a marketing strategy in place you may not get to necessary shape the marketing but you'll learn nonetheless from seasoned professionals and also network with them and possibly have them refer you to others. But trust me - it's not enough just to graduate with a degree - you need internship experience. I would even say at least 2.

Again networking is very important too, actually sometimes you need to network just to get an internship depending on the city you are in. For instance, I think in New York it's so competitive even if you have great experience it's the personal connections you have that assists in getting that job.

Another idea would be to start a blog. By this I mean if you have great ideas to share - share them. Put yourself out there. If you get a internship with a non-profit and you are key in designing their marketing strategy or overhauling their website etc...promote your work, share your experience. You may get someone's attention.

Look for local businesses or start-ups that may need help with marketing, offer your services for free.

Good luck!