It was all sorted, I was ready to make my millions going out on my own and picking up contracts and clients and being generally awesome in the world of marketing. Having accumulated nearly 15 years of experience I now had the opportunity to do what I wanted after leaving a role that I'd found fairly frustrating. Then, predictably personal circumstances changed.
The news was great, there was a baby on the way, the tactics shifted, guaranteed income was needed to ensure minimal stress as our lives changed, so for the first time in years I dusted off the CV, updated the LinkedIn profile, registered with marketing recruitment agencies, spread the word amongst contacts that I was in the market for something and then waited for the phone to ring...nothing happened.
Searching through the various recruitment sites and speaking to agencies it seemed that marketing jobs were becoming a rare thing. "It's an employers market" was the quote from recruitment agencies, too many candidates and not enough roles.
Would you be interested in a digital role? Hmmmm, I recall when I first started out in the industry when direct marketing was in vogue, the rush for Direct Marketers was all that was listed in publications like Marketing and Marketing Week and then the world changed and the requirement for the skills diminished. I imagine a gaggle of Direct Marketers desperately trying to crawl back to their core marketing skills to enable them to land something new. Who's to say that this isn't where digital roles will end up in the next five years? Generalist marketing has been safe, 'jack of all trades' and despite the saying, 'master of all trades' at the same time, it was the best ground to inhabit, suddenly the roles had dried up. What was going on?
Despite the news headlines, even today economic uncertainty still very much alive and well outside London, Staff are holding on tightly to their roles and few companies are recruiting or promoting. Entry-level positions were listing salaries at an embarrassingly low level, agencies had gone quiet and senior positions were virtually non-existent. Marketing, it seems, had paused.
Thankfully for me, I was able to land a perm position before the baby arrived to grant the security we needed as a family, but I remain concerned for my industry in the months and years to come.
During the credit crunch marketing was the first thing that many companies scratched, cut back was the mantra of many, tighten our belts, only one cup of tea per day etc, This is absolutely the wrong attitude to have and if you're working in an organisation that does this and believes it to the be the best practice then perhaps you should look elsewhere. It's always seemed obvious to me if the market is bad then promote your brand more, invest more, make some noise, be adventurous, ban the phrase "well that's how we've always done it", become resilient to the forces surrounding you. If you cut back you're simply sticking your head in the sand, hoping for things to blow over and then when the market improves you hope the roof hasn't blown off of your company.
Marketing is a transferable skill and good marketers are great at understanding audiences. We evolve with the market, we need to be early adopters of every trend and product to assess it's suitability for our brands or clients, we are a key cog in the evolution of a company and long may that continue.
Comments