Know-How Exchange : Career/Training

No relevant experience. And a degree that is only marginally connected to what you want to do. This increases the challenge significantly for you.

What you should do is think about what your skills and experiences are and who they might be useful for in the marketing area. master in Economics - perhaps this could be helpful for some place that does technical work related to economics, such as maybe one of the financial companies. if the product they are selling is hard for non-economists to understand, your background could be useful to them.

Do the same thought related to any jobs you have had, and also related to your undergraduate degree. See if you can find parts in your background that you can promote to potential employers.

In regards to what you should look for - there are many specialties in marketing that this is hard to suggest. Someone who goes into ad design follows a much different tack than marketing research which is also different than brand management. But, watch for the obvious signs, such as if they say it is entry level or ask for very little experience.

What country? What aspects of marketing interest you most? What is it about Marketing that appeals to you?

Dear pokeronomist,

As for where to look, consider the jobs listings of local and regional ad clubs, art directors clubs, local ad agencies, the AIGA, the jobs board of Mashable, and list serves/job lists for non profits.

Also consider volunteering for local non profits, churches, museums, and organizations. You'll be hired just as much for your can do attitude as you will for your background and education.

The other thing to do is to IMMERSE yourself in marketing books, periodicals, forums, blogs, social media, and content. Get known for having an opinion. Get known for knowing what you're talking about. Get known for being helpful, useful, for contributing value, and for being of use.

Start a Wordpress blog and use a proper domain. Post content. Post helpful content. Make your voice an original voice, and keep at it. DO NOT GIVE UP!

This forum is also an IDEAL place to begin. I started on this forum last May. I have no background in marketing, no MBA, and have never had a marketing lesson in my life.

But I have an opinion, I've become less shy about tooting my own horn—something I used to have a HUGE issue with—and I've spent the last 10 years learning and synthesizing the ins and outs of marketing, branding, and sales.

I'm now in the top ten list of contributors and I'm attracting clients and association offers from other people on this forum, and from elsewhere online. And all by getting involved and by putting out stuff that helps people create better marketing.

Look, if marketing was easy, everyone would be doing
it—and that's the problem, marketing DOES look easy, which is why so many halfwits over complicate it and why so many others screw it up and then bitch, moan, and whine that marketing does not work.

IT DOES WORK!

But as it is with most things (be those things making love, brewing your own beer, or driving across the Sahara, etc.),
if you're doing it and it's not working it's because you're
doing it wrong!

The big problem with marketing is that too many over-educated souls confuse the placement of fulfillment and benefit deliver at the back of the line, that is, if they ever
think of those things at all, which I'm convinced many so called marketers do not. INstead, they go with bland, vanilla, dull, yawn-fests that are promotion and nothing BUT promotion.

This approach isn't marketing: it's utter bollocks, dressed
up as marketing.

Think of your career as writing a book. Any idiot can write, but the true skill is in editing, in copy editing, and in knowing what to connect to what, and just how the story will connect with the reader. Have you ever read a dull novel that made you want to give up the will to live before you'd read beyond page 5? That, alas, is a good deal of the content that's delivered to businesses by today's marketing.

Figure out how to keep the customer ENGAGED and EAGER
for more and then sell yourself as being able to do that for
the companies you're applying to.

The secret of marketing is not selling. A lot of people think
it is, but it's not.

As a marketer, thou shalt not sell.

But thou shall tell people how their lives will be better, more interesting, happier, sexier, thinner, faster, tastier, juicier, and more aligned with their desired outcome as a result of having invested in the doughnut, the flat screen TV, the car, the carpet, the vacation, the CD, the book, or whatever it is that solves their problem, scratches their itch, or that salves their pain.

In a nutshell, that's what marketing is all about: easing or eliminating pain, or increasing pleasure. Master the art of telling people how the benefits will change their state and you'll never be out of work.

I hope this helps. Good luck to you.

Gary Bloomer
The Direct Response Marketing Guy™
Wilmington, DE, USA