If the job hunt isn’t going quite as you hoped for, let’s change that now as you aren’t alone. Did you know that 43% of college graduates are underemployed which means they are working at a job that doesn’t require a college degree and on average are earning $10,000 less per year than those who aren’t underemployed. What’s even scarier is that 2/3rds of new grads who were underemployed in their first job out of college were still underemployed five years later – Seattle Times. The numbers are even worse for those trying to go into business or marketing (47% according to the Wall Street Journal).
How To Avoid This?
The main reason marketing graduates end up being underemployed is because they don’t have the right work experience they need as employers feel as though only 11% of graduates have the necessary workforce skills. Work experience is by far the #1 thing hiring managers look for in determining who to interview/hire. If you have it, you’ll get interviews and job offers and if you don’t, you won’t. So, you must make sure you get the right work experience on your resume immediately so you don’t end up underemployed like 47% of marketing/business graduates.
Social Media marketing experience is not enough!
If this is the main type of work experience you currently have, this is why you aren’t getting many interviews/hired for marketing jobs as every single applicant you’re competing with has this as well so it’s not setting you apart whatsoever. Us marketing hiring managers want you to have working experience in at least 2 but preferably 3 out of the 4 main areas of digital marketing in Social Media, Email, PPC, and SEO Marketing. If you don’t have work experience in 3 out of 4 of these areas, it’s going to be hard to land an entry-level job in marketing especially in this tough job market. Once again, online certifications are not a replacement for work experience and won’t help you get hired any faster.
So, how do you fix your work experience issue?
Option 1: Get an internship (6-12 month route)- If you go this route, make sure that the work experience you’re getting is different from what you already have and in the areas I mentioned above. If you aren’t getting experience in at least 2 but preferably 3 of these areas, this won’t help you much. If you’d like a complete list of the most in-demand work experience marketing hiring managers want from entry-level applicants and ways you can get this work experience quickly, check out my email that I sent you titled “This Is How You Impress Marketing Hiring Managers”
Option 2: You can check out JobPrepped (the immediate route) if you want to get the exact work experience you need for your resume immediately so you can get hired in as little as 2 weeks. We train you in the most important areas hiring managers want and then give you the exact work experience you need for your resume so that you get hired faster. We’ve helped 3,000+ graduates get their first entry-level marketing job and we will make this happen for you too.
Bottom Line
You need to make sure you’re doing everything you can do now to ensure you get the right work experience and get an appropriate level job for a college graduate right out of college rather than settling and thinking that you’ll just work your way up. Remember, whatever job you get, that is the work experience you’ll be adding to your resume which will help you get the next job and job after that. If you settle for something not necessarily inline with your career goals, this is the only new work experience that you’ll be getting and as you can see by the stats, it’s much harder to get your career back on track than most young professionals realize.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at joseph@jobprepped.com as I’m always happy to help 🙂
2 thoughts on “47% – Why Entry-Level Marketing Applicants Need to Know This Number”
Everything is very open with a really clear description of the challenges. It was truly informative. Your website is extremely helpful. Thanks for sharing. Melisenda Puff Chelsie
Thank you so much! We just want to provide a place where young marketing professionals can hear directly from hiring managers so that they understand what we want and can properly adjust their approach so they can get jobs more easily.
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