In the wake of the new era of a globalised world, new standards have been set across all sectors, marketing sector included. This development, coupled with the technological advancement has called for new skills in professionals seeking jobs in the marketing sector. Marketing process involves activities such as market researching, advertising, and promoting and selling of products. This paper discusses the current issues, opportunities, challenges and trends in marketing, aiming at preparing the marketing graduates for a career in marketing.
Employability versus Employment in the Marketing Sector
To begin with, while they have often been used irreplaceably, the concepts of employability and employment remain distinct. For example, an organisation measuring the number of graduates getting jobs within six months after their graduation estimates employment rather than employability. Academicians have attested that it is possible to for employability to rise with a fall in employment during an economic recession.
Heffernan et al. (2010, p.33) have defined employability as a graduate's possession of the requisite skills and knowledge that meets the demands of the respective labour market. Employability is the measure of how close and relevant the skills and attributes of a graduate matches the position he is applying. It remains the expectation of the students that their years of study measure up to the employability. As a result, students pursuing marketing courses need to improve their employability to enable them to benefit from the opportunities arising in the sector.
The Skills Required for Graduates to Secure Jobs in the Marketing sector
Marketing sector is among the major employers of graduates currently with competition for the available opportunities getting high. As such, graduates must strive to demonstrate their competence to secure jobs. The sure way to impress the employers is through displaying skills and attributes that meet the expectations of the modern labour market. Among these skills is the need to demonstrate commercial awareness and have an interest in people. This is an essential skill in the marketing sector as marketing is pegged on people interaction, identification of the needs of the people and addressing these needs through the products offered for sale. Commercial awareness, on the other hand, helps the marketing personnel forecast economic trends and take proactive actions.
Another admirable skill that improves the employability of a graduate is excellent interpersonal skills. Outstanding interpersonal skills help a marketer build relationship with the customers based on understanding thus he or she (the marketer) can best learn the needs of the customer and serve them accordingly. Creativity is another skill that is desired in the marketing sector. Various positions in the marketing sector require varied levels of innovative ideas and minds to help improve decision making and devise better work methodology. Also, creativity is applied in developing campaign plans and solving problems arising in the department or organisation. Besides, it helps in the initiation of the innovation (Wellman 2010, p. 911).
Among the required skills that the current competitive marketing professional should possess is the teamwork skills. Teamwork is essential as marketing campaigns are not carried out in isolation but requires the coordination and participation of employees, marketing executives and the managers. Besides, they are carried out with different elements and media. Thus, teamwork skills will help the graduate marketing student to work smoothly with colleagues, marketing executives and managers. In addition to the mentioned skills, a graduate readying to join the marketing sector should have sufficient knowledge of information technology skills. Modern marketing uses an online platform to attract the new customers in this era of technological work. Besides, even marketing research is also conducted. Therefore, graduates need to know collating, storing, analysing and presenting data using the computing technology.
Besides the already highlighted skills and competencies acquired in the classrooms, graduates should also possess skills such as organisation skills and project management which are learned outside the classroom (Barker 2014, p 32). These skills become useful when it comes to newsletter writing, organising events, and budget management. Organizational skills are acquired through a combination of the part-time work, social life and academic life. One can build and perfect his or her organisational skills through his or her hobbies. An example is a sports-loving person may apply academic studies in the sports and the process gain experience.
Gender and Employment in the Marketing Sector
As already stated in the introduction, the marketing sector is affected by global developments and trends. Gender issue has dominated the world discussions, the marketing and employment sector have not been spared either. While the phrase, “what a man can do, a woman can do better” is synonymous to everyone, many studies have established that both genders have the potential to excel in the labour market (Tamkin and Hillage 1999, p.83). Therefore, it is the competence of individual graduates that separates excellence from mediocrity and not ones’ gender as per se.
To alleviate any possibility of prejudice based on gender in the employment, many laws have been enacted. The constitution demands that men and women are given equal opportunities and treatments and workplaces. In the same way that these genders are given equal opportunities to access education, rights to equal treatment have been provided in the constitution. Therefore, graduates from both gender determinant of their hiring. They should consequently improve their employability by willing to secure employment in the marketing sector need only worry about employability as the upgrading of the desired skillsets required by the labour market.
Challenges Encountered by Graduates in the Marketing Sector
A study conducted by Guardian Careers as stated by Andrews and Higson (2008, p. 422), limited job opportunities is the primary challenge facing the graduates. This emanates from the fact that the rate at which students graduate and flood the labour market is much higher than the rate at which new jobs are created by the various economies. As a result, graduates have been rendered unemployed with some sticking to unpaid internships to gain the experience that the employers have insisted on. For the same reason, graduates are labelled inexperienced which is both disheartening and unfair given the long periods of training at the institutions of higher learning.
In the study by Guardian Careers cited above, it was reported that 25 per cent of the respondents mentioned that the lack of experience desired by the employers is the major challenge graduates face. They also pointed out that the feedback they received in their efforts to get employed is sometimes demotivating. Some graduates forming the interviewee group also noted that while they were willing to have internships, these internships are too hard to secure as nepotism is often witnessed in the selection process. Despite these claims, the graduates still maintained that their degrees are a worthwhile investment and that the skills they have acquired are useful for running personal businesses.
In the same study, it was reported that 91 per cent of the respondents agreed trainee roles should be expanded by the employers to allow graduates to acquire the much-needed experience. While the majority of the graduates taking part in the survey suggested that job marketing is challenging, 42 per cent of them opined that they could increase their employability by furthering their studies.
Current Trends in the Marketing Sector
Work Experience
According to Finch et al. (2013, p. 610), experience level that attracts most employers in the marketing field is in the range of 4 to 10 years of experience. This experience is recommended for those seeking marketing strategy positions. Project management is observed to require more years of experience. Data analyst and digital marketing positions are however available to those graduates with no prior experience.
Soft skills are in Much Demand
Barr and McNeilly (2002, p. 169) note that employers use soft skills as the parameter in choosing the most qualified applicants. This is because of the need to have individuals with the problem-solving ability, and soft skills is a demonstration that an applicant can articulate ideas. Also, marketers are also required to possess analytical thinking ability as they foster decision making relating to the performance of different products in the market.
Digital Transformation
Modern marketing requires professionals to focus on the changes in business models and think of ways to ensure sustainability of the business through devising methods of acquiring a competitive edge over their competitors. Technology has been identified as the pathway to providing a more accurate and cheap way of ensuring sustainability of businesses. Graduates in marketing should, therefore, be proficient in the application of technology for the benefits of business to improve their employability.
Generating and Using Insight to Shape Marketing Practice
Studies have shown that Big Data plays a critical role in the growth of businesses. However, as Ho and Hung (2008, p. 237) note, concerns are rising that Big Data is thriving at the expense of insight. With their eyes fixed on means of acquiring a competitive advantage, most employees have concentrated on data and knowledge to achieve this end and have ignored essential aspects such as the product quality, capabilities and assets.
The Development of an Omni-channel World
The emergence of the mobile technology and its broad application across both social and business spheres have changed the ways of doing business and marketing. The previous marketing through the word of mouth where customers spread the information about the product is gone. A new technological world where virtual marketing is done through the mobile has taken centre stage. This has been referred to as the omni-channelled world where a single post can reach millions of customers in just a few seconds (Champman 2006, p. 44). With this development is an alarm to the new marketers to break from the traditional marketing theories and establish a robust online presence.
Conclusion
There are many opportunities in the marketing sector that graduates can take up. Higher education plays a vital role in equipping the graduates with the requisite skills and knowledge useful in the employment world. However, the knowledge and skills acquired in the classroom are not in themselves enough to ready graduates to the challenge associated with seeking jobs. Soft skill is still needed to complement the classroom-acquired ones. These skills include organisation and problem-solving skills among others. The study has also established that management trainee programs and internships are useful in increasing graduates’ employability by handing them the experience they require to be competent. Current trends in the marketing sector include evolution into an omnichannel world, need for insight, a requirement of soft skills and digitisation.
References
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