What is the next generation of marketing leaders curious about?
Instead of asking them, they asked me. But I have some questions for them in return.
Last week, I joined my alma mater Binghamton University for their Networking Night where students pull up a virtual seat at the virtual tables of real, live alumni in various fields. I got to hear what’s on students’ minds.
The night is a career fair designed to provide directional guidance, rather than a job fair where employers and candidates connect about specific roles. Even virtually, you can quickly tell which students are thinking about a job and which are thinking about their careers.
This isn’t just any event. It used to be held in person, and I first attended it during my senior year of college. I was graduating with a BA in Psychology and thought I might wind up teaching. By the time I left the event, I was inspired to try to land a writing job in digital media, and it led me to where I am today.
This event is bigger for me than the Consumer Electronics Show and South by Southwest combined, so I always try to return. I don’t know if I’ve inspired more students than I’ve scared out of marketing careers, but the university keeps saving a seat for me anyway.
So, what’s on students’ minds?
Here are the top 10 questions students asked me during the event, in no particular order:
- How did you go from a psychology major into the marketing field?
- What’s your day-to-day job like?
- Can you share your email address?
- What do you do?
- What got you into this kind of work?
- Should I look for an internship right now or apply for jobs?
- Would I be able to grab your email?
- Are there any must-take classes?
- How can I merge my interests in two different fields?
- Do you have an email or LinkedIn?
Some of those made for a good start. Few students fully took advantage of the five or ten minutes they spent at the table – or a bit longer if they listened to someone else’s exchange with me.
I love questions, so much that when I returned to Binghamton in 2013 to give a commencement address, it was all about the question, “What are you making of yourself?”
I’ve also written lists full of questions. Sometime during the pandemic – don’t even ask me which year, because we can just call it the 20Covids at this point – I shared some slides full of 100+ questions to ask when exploring a new marketing role. You can find it at bit.ly/serialqs.
For anyone reading this who may find themselves attending such a fair or knows someone who will, here are the top questions that no one asked – but I wish they did:
- Why did you enter the marketing field?
- What is the hardest part about your job?
- Have you ever been tempted to change careers?
- What does a win look like for you in your current job?
- How do you currently measure the success of your work?
- In what ways did your alma mater prepare you for the workforce?
- What do you wish you did differently in college that would have prepared you better for your career?
- What annoys you most about your job or career?
- How can I best stand out among all the job applicants that I’m competing with?
- Is there anyone you know of who might be able to provide me more information about [a certain company, role, career path, etc]?
Some of the questions show you’re curious to learn more about the person.
Some of the questions show you’re curious to learn more about the craft.
Some of the questions show you’re fearless enough to ask tough questions.
And the last question shows you don’t just want to learn about marketing; you’re also learning how to sell.
What questions are on your mind lately? Ask me, or the community. I’m always here to hear your answer to one question in particular:
What are you making of yourself?
David
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EVENTS
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Please submit any events you’re hosting to our calendar at https://serialmarketers.net/
January 24-26
Via Jeff Pulver
Catch David speaking here on January 25. Via Jeff Pulver: “Historically my VON conferences helped accelerate the global growth of the Voice on the Net and Video on the Net worlds. VON helped usher in a new era in global communications. I envision similar opportunities at VON3. While elements of Web3 have been around for a few years, I believe now is the time to start pushing forward and explore the brave new opportunities available because of Web3.”
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5 WAYS TO GET STARTED WITH PERSONALIZED ANIMATED SMS
January 27, 2021
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RESEARCH & TECH EVENT
Feb 2 – 2pm
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2022 IAB ANNUAL LEADERSHIP MEETING
February 7-10 –virtual and in-person
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ADEXCHANGER’S INDUSTRY PREVIEW
FEBRUARY 22
“Industry Preview is an intimate and exclusive, one-day conference for senior executives in the data-driven digital media and marketing technology ecosystem focused on what to expect in the coming year. The AdExchanger team will curate a program of thought leaders and trendsetters who see beyond the obvious.”
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JOBS
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Keep checking out the #jobs channel in Serial Marketers for more. Better yet, subscribe to get updates from our job listing board. Here are some great opportunities shared in these places or sent to me directly.
MULBERRY
Senior SDR Manager
Remote
“We are growing rapidly and are looking for an established Sales Development Manager to help support and develop our sales footprint. In this role: You will focus on developing, managing and training our growing outbound SDR team. You will look to help the team achieve their targets by mentoring and coaching them while also optimizing processes.”
Apply
MULBERRY
Sales Operations Associate
Remote
“We are growing rapidly and looking for a Sales Operations Associate to join our sales operations team. As a member of the sales operations team, you will provide key operational support and analytical insights that will drive revenue growth and serve as a trusted partner to the Sales, Marketing, and Partner Success teams.”
Apply
GXO LOGISTICS, INC.
Director, Digital Marketing
Greenwich, CT-based
Via Eric in the community
“The Director, Digital Marketing, is a core member of the GXO Communications team. You will be responsible for driving our global brand, digital marketing and content strategy to engage stakeholders and drive customer demand. In this role, you will partner closely with internal and external business partners to develop persuasive content experiences in support of business priorities.”
Apply
GroupM
Director of Social Platforms
NY
“The Director of Social Platforms role is a business critical role that supports the health of the practices by managing the emerging platform space for agency teams from complex activations, to operations requirements, to troubleshooting the user interface. The ideal candidate will have a direct knowledge of paid social activation within the biddable realm, including but not limited to Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn. Recent and relevant experience directly managing paid social campaigns, as well as building and overseeing enterprise operational structures within large media agencies, is a mandate for consideration.”
Apply
CUREX
Growth Marketing Manager
Remote
“We are looking for a growth marketer to join our team. As we continue to grow and scale, we are seeking a proactive, entrepreneurial, dedicated and detail-oriented growth marketer to directly partner with our product and marketing team. We need someone to run experiments across the funnel, improve conversion rate, and work cross-department to collaborate on new initiatives.”
Apply
Find more open roles via Candidate.co. Refer yourself or your friends, and get rewarded for supporting your network.
Also, check out the Serial Marketers job board.
Other job resources:
- AMA Job Board: Listings from the American Marketing Association (maybe you can also ask them anything)
- Beeler.Tech: Job listings for ad operations, programmatic account management, sales operations, and more.
- Braintrust: A freelance platform where you are the owner and where freelance talent keeps 100% of the bill rate.
- Built in NYC: Jobs at a range of levels and functions, as long as you’re okay working in this quaint, backwater hamlet.
- Content Writing Jobs: Content marketers, enjoy
- Creative Women of Color: List yourself in the database and find talent, via Women Who Create
- Demand Curve: Growth and marketing jobs
- ExecThread: Senior roles spanning a range of verticals and cities; membership is free but fully vetted (this uses my referral ID to get you in faster)
- Gently Ventures: Helps scale businesses by finding the right talent
- Growth Collective: Apply to join this network of notable freelance marketers
- Grace Blue Transitions: A portal for hirers and seekers with resources from this exec recruiting firm
- The Hired Guns: An array of jobs in marketing and related fields at brands, agencies, and media companies
- Hue: Amplifying voices of people in color working in marketing
- Lunch Club: Match 1:1 around predetermined goals with accomplished professionals (free)
- NYC Ad Jobs & Networking: A popular Facebook group
- One Club for Creativity: COVID-19 jobs Board
- #OpenToWork: There’s a channel in Serial Marketers where you can share what you’re looking for
- Pangea: Hire college freelancers (and college students can get gigs)
- Pocit: A platform connecting people of color with jobs in the tech industry
- Questions to Ask for a Marketing Role: What questions should you ask when starting a new marketing role or job?
- Serial Marketers Job Board: Post regular and featured listings and subscribe for updates.
- Startup.Jobs: There’s a section for marketing jobs
- Teal: One place to organize and manage your job search.
- TechNY Daily: While more technical, there are also some sales and marketing jobs at NY startups.
- VC Job Boards: Aleph, Eniac Ventures, Pear, Sequoia, Union Square Ventures
- VentureLoop: Free startup job listings; their paid option is $15/month and might surface more leads (but it might not).
- Venwise: Submit your job interests here and get in front of their roster of hiring leads; select “Serial Marketers” under “How did you find us”
Do you run or enjoy other job listing sites? Let me know, and I’ll share them.
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OFFERS
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Below are offers extended to the Serial Marketers community. To share your own or access the Premium member discounts, review membership options here.
GPO: Generate at least 20% more organic traffic. Doing a strong job in SEO but wonder if more traffic can be had? GPO will custom-build an AWS instance that will become a subdomain of your site, and generate at least 20% more traffic the first year. Contact Cory Cox in the community to redeem.
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Markman Speaker Management: Get 15% off the half-day customized virtual training session “Get Speaking Engagements” for individuals or corporate staff through Sept. 30, 2021. Contact Steve Markman to redeem.
Thece: Get 10% off their Getting Started Kit — just let them know Serial Marketers sent you.
FocusedFounder
Get 5% back on any bookings of the Focus, Growth, and ReFocus plan. To receive your rebate, please contact me after you book the course.
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My Software Tutor is offering all Excel and PPT courses through December 2021 at 50% off listed price. Learn the practical skills you need to succeed. Use promo code: SERIAL50. This code can be shared with friends and family. Register today on the MST website.
ReverseAds
Get 10% discounts on campaigns. ReverseAds reverses the search ad process, outperforming Google at a fraction of the cost. To redeem, contact Thom Feltz by email.
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Marc Lefton is offering brands a free one-hour consultation on your media mix to show how you can integrate programmatic. For agencies, you can get a free one-hour consultation on how to add programmatic to your service offerings. To redeem, contact Marc by email.
Secret
Sign up and use the promo code SERIALMARKETERS to get 20% off on any membership plan. Membership enables you to access all deals with unlimited usage. One deal should more than pay for itself.
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Create an account and start a 7-day free trial for $125 in ad spend credit toward your first experiment with this multivariate testing platform. Redeem here. (Premium members get $175 in credit with a custom code)
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