Making the Most of Your Marketing Career

Lilly Thuma Picture

by Lilly Thuma | Last Updated: Mar 29, 2021

The beginning of your marketing career can kind of feel like building a plane while flying. Everything seems like it’s moving at 100 mph, you are learning a million new things a day, and school doesn’t really prepare you for what a career in marketing is actually like. So, if you thought you’re the only young marketer that feels this way, you’re not. On the Real Marketers Podcast, Sara Pion, Brand Content Manager at Alyce, talks all about the challenges of being a young marketer and how to get the most out of your marketing career. Navigating Early Days of Your Career The early days of any career are challenging, but especially a marketing career. It’s very likely you can go to a business school, get a degree in marketing, and graduate without really knowing anything about marketing. Not to mention all of the different types of marketing like digital, mobile, SEO, demand gen, etc. In fact, most of your marketing knowledge will probably come from what you learn in your first job. The best way to make the most of the first couple years of your career is to learn and observe as much as you can. Watch what other marketers are doing within your company, and apply it to your job. The more you can learn the better. Also, don’t count yourself out just because you are young. If you have an idea to share, share it. Don’t hold yourself back just because you don’t have as much experience. Work Outside of Your Job When you’re thinking about how to grow your career, one of the most important things you can do is work outside of your job. This is a very simple thing to do but can be very challenging depending on your work environment. Working outside of your job means thinking beyond your job description about how you can improve something or help someone out on a different team. When Sara began her marketing career at Drift, her manager told her that she needs to think about long-term projects and how she can evolve her role. This gave her the push she needed to start taking initiative on new projects without waiting to be told what to do. However, this isn’t always easy if you don’t have someone pushing you. Sara’s advice on how to do this is to adopt the mindset of “how can I be the most helpful person in the room?”. Start looking for problems that frequently come up, and think about how you can solve them. Start talking to other departments so you really understand the product. Doing these little things will help set you up for success for the rest of your career. How to Know When to Move On Knowing when to move on from your current role isn’t easy. You might feel like you are letting your team or company down by leaving them, but you are not. When you are thinking it might be time to move on consider these three questions:
  1. What do you want to do in your career? Think about what you actually want to be doing in the future and if you enjoy what you are doing in your current role.
  2. Where do you want to be? Think about what your career goals are. Then determine if your current role aligns with them.
  3. Did you accomplish what you came here to do? This is arguably the most important question to ask yourself. If you feel like you have accomplished what you wanted to, and that you have gotten everything out of this job that you can, then it is likely time to move on.
In whatever position you are in, you want to constantly be learning and growing in your career. If you feel like you have stopped moving forward, then you might want to think about what role you can move into to continue your growth.

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