On 07 April, the Office of Career Development organized a hybrid (virtual and physical) sharing on the topic “Kickstart your Marketing career! But how should I prepare for it?”. This time, we have invited Ms. Effie Yang, Head of Marketing of Sofasoda, to share more about having a career as a Marketer, and how students can better prepare themselves during their job hunt. Just a little background on Effie, she has held various positions in the marketing department, such as Facebook, Line, Yahoo, HTC, etc. She is also one of NSYSU’s current career consultants.
After a brief introduction of her background, Effie started off her main sharing by addressing some of the common misconceptions of a marketer. Most people’s impression of a marketer is that they require someone highly creative, has strong language ability, is able to work with renowned artists or influencers, etc. However, that may not always be the case. Although having such traits would indeed be important as a marketer, however, just being creative and influential would not make a marketer exceptional. A good example would be having data analytical skills to analyze a huge amount of data for marketing research purposes.
Similar to what most students learned in class about marketing, the marketing purpose in a typical organization can be classified into two categories, business-to-consumers (B2C) or business-to-business (B2B). Generally, the public would be more familiar with B2C marketing, such as the ads that can be seen in the public area or on the television. Effie went on to analyze the effectiveness of some of the B2C marketing strategies and shared that online marketing strategies tend to have a harder time making a lasting impression.
To help improve the students’ understanding of having a career in marketing, Effie shared with the attendees some of the daily lives of her marketing team. Apart from attending meetings, more meetings, and even more meetings, the rest of their time would be spent on market research and preparing the proposal for their marketing campaign. Herein lies a question, why is there a need for a marketer to attend so many meetings? The answer to this question is simple, apart from meeting with the senior management, most of the time, the marketing team’s proposed campaign would require them to work closely with other departments in the organization. As such, to succeed as a marketer, it is crucial to have good time management skills, and the ability to communicate and work coherently with different stakeholders.
As for students who intend to start a career in a market upon graduation, Effie also provided some valuable advice to them. To increase your chance of being recruited as a marketer, while schooling, students can make full use of their time to take up professional certifications or marketing courses, stay up-to-date with the latest happening in the marketing industry, and also take sign up for internships during their semester breaks.
Towards the end of the sharing, Effie addressed the questions that were raised by the students throughout the event.
For example, in your CV, students should consider including your relevant skills and experiences. If you have the time, do consider participating in events that would be beneficial for your future career, like attending sharing from professional marketers, etc.
As for students who asked about the recommended marketing courses to attend, Effie suggested that students could consider exploring the courses that Google is offering (see picture 5). Some of the courses online are free and would be very relevant at work.
Lastly, when interviewing for a marketing position, Effie recommends the students to always be prepared for the interview. So, what does being prepared for an interview mean? Apart from having a good understanding of the organization’s background and services, you should also know what the marketing department in the organization does. You can also increase your chance of getting selected by having good Microsoft Excel skills, as the majority of the market research analysis would require the use of Excel.
We would also like to take this opportunity to thank Effie for taking time out from her busy schedule to join us for the sharing.
