At The Job Forum career fair co-hosted with the American Marketing Association (AMA SF), job hunters had the chance to hear about new opportunities and advice for next steps in job search.

For advertising jobs, are there recruiters and headhunter resources to connect with and how does that work?   

Overall recruitment in advertising falls into three approaches. One, there are those recruiters who are “in house”, working full time whether it be at an agency, production house or company. They are full time employees who handle the hiring for that organization. The second is what some call a “headhunter” approach. This is an individual or a boutique recruiting agency  who works with multiple clients and generally sources great candidates directly for specific roles that they are under contract and they are engaged to fill. The third approach is the recruiter who is a contract consulting recruiter, working embedded on the team of those who hire at the company or agency.

What advice to job hunters do recruiters offer?

You must begin by taking a really close look at both what the job role requirements are and what the responsibilities are.

At The Job Forum one recruiter explained this by saying:

‘Take the requirements with a tiny grain of salt. If you’re somewhere a little bit above or a little bit below with experience. I wouldn’t let that stop you from applying. But take time to know what they are looking for so you can clearly articulate what you bring to the job”

Definitely tailor your approach to what the specific responsibilities are and it is important to make it really easy for the recruiter.

“Think about the fact that a recruiter has to present you as a candidate internally, and will have to make a case for why the team should interview or consider you as the right job candidate. Make it really easy for someone to do that”.

When you make it really easy for the recruiter to verbalize and make a case for you, via a clear, concise and compelling approach to presenting yourself as an ideal candidate for the responsibilities, they described they want, it makes the recruiter’s job much easier, and therefore there is a much better chance that you may get that first screening call for a phone interview.

Any new areas developing in the field of advertising and marketing to consider?

There is now a field called “Immersive Technology”. Immersive Technologies create experiences by merging the physical world with a digital or simulated reality.  These for example use technology including AR, (Augmented Reality) or VR,( Virtual Reality).

Immersive Technology might be used to make marketing of products via online shopping experiences much more “ real” or satisfying or interactive. This is so that consumers have what they need and are inspired to make a purchase.

One of our experts at The Job Forum says:

” So many industries will be looking to add immersive experiences and subject matter experts will be needed as well as those with the technical skills.

For an immersive banking tool, we will need people with some experience from the banking industry, or if we’re doing something in healthcare, we will need experienced people from health care. So every industry has transferrable skills for most of the immersive technology applications, which is great. So if you are interested in this new area, you can move into Immersive Technology if you are a graphic or digital UX designer, or if you are a traditional developer.  So there are going to be lots of opportunities, if you’re interested, dive into it and find out”.

 To learn more visit the website for the industry ecosystem…AWE

 https://www.awexr.com/usa-2021/about_awe

Training organizations in the SF Bay Area for producers and designers?

One great example of an organization for training in video production, editing, and post production skills which lead to good jobs, is Bay Area Video Coalition Media (BAVC Media).

BAVC Media is a community hub and resource for media makers in the Bay Area and across the country, serving over 7,500 freelancers, filmmakers, job-seekers, activists, and artists every year.

BAVC Media provides access to media making technology, storytelling workshops, and training in digital marketing, video production, video and  audio post production, web and graphics design and more.

 Working in Marketing at Salesforce?

Salesforce has many different roles relevant for those in the marketing professions. At The Job Forum, we talked with one expert recruiter at Salesforce who explained:

“At large companies such as Salesforce, recruiters get over a million applications a year. So you need to keep things short and to the point when communicating. (You don’t need a really long cover letter). Short to the point means a few bullets, and include why you are qualified for the position and  what makes you as a job candidate stand out.”

At large companies like Salesforce it is a good idea to network at the company. Reach out to people through LinkedIn, you might not hear back from everyone, but try to build your network.

“At Salesforce we rely on referrals a lot, and so build your network with us. We reach out to every referral that applies.  Getting referred ensures that your resume gets reviewed. Building that network is critical. At many or most large companies, there may be a referral bonus that goes to the person who referred you.”

Salesforce has been in a hiring growth mode.  Salesforce has a lot of openings across kind of all functions across the company.

“Within marketing, Salesforce has a variety of roles like campaign managers, product marketers, and all kinds of creative positions, and we have brand marketing manager positions too.  Salesforce is building out our digital team and we have marketing analytics positions available as well”

 Salesforce is hiring in marketing roles. Check out the openings for remote or in person jobs

https://www.salesforce.com/company/careers

Come to the Job Forum for the latest information on how to build your job network and get hired. We will extend to you a helping hand!

Thank you to Michelle Excell at the Antipodean, Hilary Lannan recruitment,  Bre Brockington at BAVC Media, and to Kim Ratto in recruiting at Salesforce for your input to The Job Forum.

Organizations mentioned

https://bavc.org/about

https://AMA.org

https://wwwsalesforce.com

https://www.theantipodean.us

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hillarylannan

When you begin a job hunt, you always have questions:

• How likely are you to get hired?
• Are there enough jobs in your profession?
• Are there openings at the companies where you want to work?

The unemployment rate climbed sharply within the first two months of the pandemic, reaching 14.7% in April 2020. That figure surpassed the unemployment rate during the first two years of the Great Recession (2007-2009). However, compared to the two-and-a-half years that it took during the Great Recession, in 2020, it took only four months before the unemployment rate went below 9%.

So, what can you do to get your dream job?

Get going right now!

The beginning of the year (January – April) is a great time to get hired in most industries. In fact, it’s probably the best time to look for jobs all year in most industries.

January usually starts slowly as people come back from holiday vacations but by the second week of the month, things are running smoothly.

February is a peak hiring time.  Most jobs have been updated and new jobs have been posted to the job boards in January.

February is the month to put the most effort into your application and to communicate with your network and with companies at which you want to work.

March and April is still a good time to look for a job!

Start with these easy steps:

Dust off that résumé and bring it up to date

Write down your job “must haves”

Create your targeted company lists

Set job alerts so you can be ready when your desired companies post openings

Create your contact and networking list and craft your email message to reach out and ask for a referral to your target companies

Send out your updated résumé

The later you apply for an open position, the stiffer the competition you will face.

Many jobs are posted on Tuesdays and many candidates jump right on the new listings and send in their applications and résumé promptly. This is one reason you should set alerts for jobs at your target companies and be ready to move (make a few final adaptations related to the job description to your résumé) and be able apply promptly.

Don’t overlook the opportunities and benefits of temporary positions.

Taking on a temporary role allows you to see a company from the inside, understand how it functions and to get to know hiring managers on the inside. Companies vary as to whether they offer permanent positions to those who have worked there temporarily. Many staffing agencies report that 70-90% of the temporary workers they place into companies, will get “converted” and get a permanent position in the company.

We at The Job Forum can help you get going on your early in the year plans and stay ahead of the competition.  Come to The Job Forum to get your job search questions answered, add networking contacts and hear job search strategy ideas from our volunteers who are experienced in work at local businesses. Let’s get started with your early year job search and help you to get hired!

Cindy Fassler and Janet Beach

Marketing and advertising professionals had a great opportunity to meet and talk directly with hiring companies at The Job Forum career fair co-hosted with the American Marketing Association (AMA SF)

The Job Forum has advice you can apply to your job search and ways to adapt your approach for a wide range of job titles and types of roles you may want to explore in the fields of advertising and marketing and social media marketing.

We organize tips for job hunters by job title and company.

Product Marketing Manager

Product Marketing is a broad field. And it’s also a relatively new field.

There are a lot of different backgrounds that can help feed into product marketing.

A Product Marketing Manager at Facebook advises job hunters to think about two aspects of the role of Product Marketing Manager : 1. Inbound target market inputs and 2. Outbound target market strategy and messaging.

For the first skill-set, inbound inputs, think how you, your skills, and your experience, are suited to the marketing tasks that include:

Gathering market insights, understanding the competitive landscape, analyzing and capturing insights and uncovering nuggets from user feedback. These are the kinds of inputs that help influence product direction and ensure the team is building a product or service that will differentiate the product or service and solves for market needs.

As a job hunter, interested in product marketing, think about what are things that you’ve done that map to that kind of needed experience since, as a Product Marketing Manager, you are the lead on target market input.

The second skill-set for landing a job as a Product Marketing Manager is outbound strategy and messaging priorities. As the product is getting ready to launch, how do you strategize about the launch and plan the “go to market” strategy? How will you provide leadership regarding what the key messages are for a product, who is going to use it, how shall the team prioritize the benefits to tell people about the product or service being marketed?

You will want to think about what are some of things that you have done in a past job role, even if not a product marketing job title per se, that demonstrate strategic thinking and ability to prioritize messages and be sure you communicate those skills and your relevant past experience making decisions about priorities for marketing strategy and messaging and find ways to emphasize these within your resume and during your interview.

Working at Facebook, now called Meta:

 Facebook, now called META is a really large company.

There are a lot of different roles for marketing and advertising professionals.  Here are some tips for what you should you do as you apply at Meta or Facebook:

1. Make sure you go to the Facebook career site first, https://www.facebookcareers.com
2. Read the job descriptions in depth for all of the different types of positions,
3. Make sure that you have a good understanding of what each position will actually entail and figure out why this is the right fit for you,
4. There may be many positions to which you could apply, but you can only actually apply to a few. Make sure you are applying to the positions that really are the best fit for your skills, and have the maximum chance of getting you to the next round and having you talking to the relevant recruiter and hiring manager team,
5. Think and plan very specifically about how you will articulate your background and skills so they relate to what is required for the job,
6. If you happen to know someone who works at Meta, or any part of Facebook and they are familiar with your work, and can speak to your work or past experiences, that can be useful. Referrals are powerful at many companies, including at Facebook.

Companies are actively selecting candidates who they hope will shine and contribute. We hope you will use these tips coming to you directly from The Job Forum, product marketing and Facebook recruiting volunteers to optimize your opportunities to be considered and selected as a top candidate.

THANK YOU to Aneri Shah and Josh Sacco for their input

Organizations mentioned include:

https://thejobforum.org.

https://AMA.org,

https://www.facebookcareers.com

Marketing and advertising professionals had a great opportunity to meet and talk directly with hiring companies at The Job Forum career fair co-hosted with the American Marketing Association (AMA SF). One topic covered was advertising agency work and roles in the Media Department.

What are some of the job roles in advertising agencies?

There are many roles for people to work in the fast-paced, fun world of Advertising Agencies. In a full-service advertising agency, the departments typically may include:

1. The Account Management Department where there are Account Coordinators, Account Managers, Account Supervisors and Account Directors who work with clients on marketing and advertising strategies.
2. The Creative Department where there are copywriters, social media managers, content writers, art directors, designers, and producers, who work on developing and producing the clients’ actual advertising campaigns.
3. The Media Department where there are Media Planners who analyze the media options and decide where to place advertising. There are Media Buyers who are channel experts (with knowledge of TV and radio markets, Podcasts, Programmatic advertising ad paid search). Media Buyers negotiate and buy the ad space in the media. They place the advertising and analyze results so that the target customer will see the advertising and become aware and influenced by the messages. There are media analytic roles as well and those job titles may be called media or marketing analysts and data engineers.
4. The Account Planning or Research Department where they give valuable target audience research insights for the choice of the priority messages for how a product or service will be differentiated and advise how on what basis to advertise in order to stand out and be preferred in a competitive product or service category.

What are job hunters characteristics that matter for advertising agency work?

From entry level all the way up to quite senior levels, advertising agencies want people with attention to detail, curiosity, and they want those who are organized, and have the discipline for following through.

One of the most important things is curiosity.

One of the advertising agencies we spoke with at a Job Forum event said:

“Curiosity drives everything that those well-suited for work at advertising agencies do.  Curiosity makes us question things, look at a product or service differently, poke holes in assumptions and thinking, dig deeper, and when we have more questions, it is an effort to provide the best thinking possible for our advertising work. “

So, if as a job hunter, you have curiosity, you are going to help your clients business, you are going to think better, and more deeply about target audience preferences, and about the media landscape. Your curiosity is likely going drive better ideas and better business.

What is involved and needed as a skill set for media jobs?  

There is an ever-evolving landscape of media alternatives to reach the target audiences.   Ever since the invention of the internet, smart phones, and apps, consumers have now millions of sites and apps and streaming services as media they consume and at which they choose to spend their time. So it is really important, for a job hunter considering a media job, to be interested in staying on top of all the media choices, to understand the changing media landscape.

Second, there are media platforms and software tools to learn to use.

These are basic technologies and tools that agencies use for media planning or buying or analysis, so one must learn how to use them and leverage them to help advertising messages reach the target audience.

Some of the tools and software are Nielsen, or Kantar, Comscore, or Pathmatics. These are used in order to understand a target audience and their media consumption habits.   Hiring managers at agencies might look to see if you have some familiarity with those kinds of data and analytics tools.

Agencies also want creative thinkers that really can bring new ideas and have a mind set to be problem solvers.

Is it necessary to have a media background?

Media is a field that is open and you can enter!   At The Job Forum we understand that Media can be a choice for anyone who has had a job in some kind of marketing.  Experts who advise job hunters at the Job Forum tell us:

“If you understand the overarching umbrella of marketing to target audiences, even if it was in PR or, a different version of doing marketing, you’re going to have some insight and information that you can bring to a media job role. Anyone with an analytical or research orientation is going to be seen as having useful experience and potential for planning media because advertising agencies do a lot of research to put together media plans.”

Media is a field to consider for anyone who is analytical or a  “numbers person.  Anyone for example who has experience in budgeting will likely do well. Many analytic or numbers or research- based experiences will be seen as valuable and transferrable for joining an agency and targeting roles specific to media.

THANK YOU to H&L Partners and Jacqueline Zolowicz for her input to The Job Forum.

Organizations mentioned include:

https://thejobforum.org

https://www.handlpartners.com/

https://AMA.org