A successful marketing career is more than just working up to a high salary. Everyone’s definition of a fulfilling career is different, but if you truly want to advance your career, realizing that it revolves around more than a nice paycheck is important.
Establishing a career in marketing can be intimidating, to say the least – especially when you’re up against other talented professionals. However, having the desire to succeed and taking full control of your career can be all you need to be successful. The path you take to develop your career and reach your personal definition of success rests on your shoulders and will differ from everyone else’s journeys.
Video by Brian Tracy
Marketing Headhunters: How to Create Early Career Success in Marketing
Whether you’re trying to excel in your current role or you’re seeking a new opportunity, taking the right steps to set yourself up for a prosperous career can contribute to early success.
Interested in learning what those are? Here are some uncomplicated ways marketing headhunters believe you can use to cultivate your marketing career from the start of your journey:
Keep Track of Your Accomplishments
How have you helped your organization grow and contributed to your team in meeting goals? What are some of the biggest quantifiable results you’ve produced that led to a growth in ROI?
Successful marketers like you accomplish things that are well-worth recognizing. Keeping track of your wins and accomplishments along the way helps you to stay organized and conscious of your performance.
Notable achievements should be used to evaluate yourself and used as a guide to continue performing well in your job or if you ever need to share your major wins with marketing headhunters in a job search.
Explore and Take Initiative
Today’s talent pool is filled with intelligent, creative, and highly-skilled marketers. Companies want people who are eager to grow and who are willing to work hard to earn their spots. In order to stand out, you must take initiative in your own growth and come up with great new ideas that truly sets you apart.
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Nobody knows your potential and capabilities better than yourself. Put yourself in an exploratory mindset instead of getting stagnant or stuck in the status quo. Don’t wait for your boss to offer you a new role or project they think you’d be good at. Take charge of your own development by thinking ahead and placing yourself in positions to grow and learn. You should be open to gaining new knowledge and becoming a lifelong learner.
You likely have a separation between your professional and personal professional goals. Your professional goals typically align with company goals and benchmarks you need to meet. For instance – if the company’s looking to grow the market share by 30%, what are your goals in contributing to that? You should additionally have a set of personal goals you want to achieve in your career. For instance, you may want to become a marketing manager in five years, and take on more responsibilities. What steps do you need to take to get there? These are all things you should plan and prepare for – before you know it, the time will be here!
Constantly Evaluate Yourself
Just as much as you need to explore opportunities to propel your career forward, you should consistently evaluate your performance, weaknesses, strengths, and things to improve on. Do your own annual evaluations – assess what you’ve learned, what you were looking to learn, and whether you’ve expanded your skill set and achieved your goals. Once you’re able to reflect on yourself professionally, you’re in a better position yourself to navigate the future of your career.
People often get so consumed in the day-to-day tasks that they forget to look at the bigger picture and gauge how those tasks are either helping or holding them back. If you have an idea of where you want to go, carefully determine the core skill sets you’re going to need to gain to move forward. Have a solid yet flexible career path in mind and make sure the projects you take on align with it.
Be consistent with the times you choose to do self-evaluations. Whether it’s around the summer, your birthday, or beginning of the year, make it a point to do it around the same time each year. This way, it becomes a habit. Consistently doing self-assessments will ensure you’re learning, challenging yourself, and progressing in the right direction.
Find a Mentor
If you don’t currently have a mentor, identify someone who’s found success in your industry and in a role you aspire to be in. Shadow people in your department or other departments if you find interest in a role and want to learn more about it. This is a great way to explore different roles and functions. Mentors can be within your own organization or someone in your network on LinkedIn – don’t hesitate to reach out!
Leverage mentors to learn from what they’ve gone through, how they got to the place they’re in, and the steps you need to take to get there. Their perspectives and experiences can help you discover skills you may never have known you needed.
Investing time engaging with industry leaders or your manager will give you unique insight into different roles firsthand. Any marketing talent agency knows this will also prove to your manager how eager you are in growing and progressing your career.
Take your learning a bit further by taking online courses and watching webinars. If you discover something you don’t know or something that interests you, these resources are incredibly valuable in growing your knowledge on your own time.
Final Thoughts
Marketing is a career that requires a lifetime of continual growth. Don’t stay complacent or stagnant when you’re jumpstarting what can be an incredibly rewarding career. You may run into a few bumps in the road along the way, but as long as you keep pushing forward and stay motivated, you will find yourself presented with great opportunities to move your career forward.
