Gainesville Marketing Jobs
Your Marketing Career in Gainesville, FL and The Surrounding Areas of North-Central Florida.
Question: I’ve recently graduated from the University of Florida in Gainesville with my marketing degree. During the application process many firms are telling me that I’m too inexperienced to join them. The problem is, how can I get experience if nobody hires me? What’s the best way to get started in my career?
Answer: Starting out in any career is going to be hard – marketing is no different. It will often feel like the “chicken or the egg” situation: how can you get a job without experience, but you can’t get experience outside of a job? Well, there are a few ways to gain experience before pushing your resume.
Meeting other marketers is the most imporant thing you can do when starting out. It’s more important than sharing your resume, in fact. Here are three ways to get started.
1. Get involved. Start with professional associations like the AMA, which can be a good place for meeting other people with marketing careers. Attending AMA-sponsored events is an easy way to introduce yourself to marketing teams. There are also blogs and websites widely available: make comments on articles and contact their authors, asking questions and maybe helping them with side projects.
2. Talk with Marketers. Everyone starts at the bottom, with no experience. Another way to say it is that nobody is “born” with experience. So contact people that are already on their way to success and offer to treat them to lunch, strike up conversations with them and get their advice. Talk with professional marketers about how they got their career going and where it’s headed. Words of wisdom can save you time and frustration. Asking others to review your portfolio, resume and cover letter will also help you get your foot in the door at an agency or become the marketing leader in a local business. Having your resume reviewed early, by a peer, will bring up tips on how you can end up at the top of the stack of applications.
3. Apply to the company you want to work for, not just the job or department. If you’re having difficulty getting a specific job title, you might look for a lower-level entry job that will help you gain a footing in the company. From there, it’s easy to introduce your skills, help out the team, and provide insights that show your value. After a couple months of delivering results, your boss and team leaders will understand what you bring to the table and be more likely to utilize your skills. Also, this will give you actual work and customer interaction experience, leading to more marketing opportunities over time.