by Guest Author, Miles Oliver
The marketing sector is a multi-billion dollar industry that’s only expected to keep growing. However, the level of growth that happens in this sector depends largely on the people who currently work in the field and the up-and-coming talent entering it.
If you’re hoping to break into marketing, setting yourself apart from other job seekers is number one. Your resume must highlight your unique skills. It’s also essential to employ other creative approaches to stand out in a job search.
If you’re unsure how to differentiate yourself and your marketing resume in the crowded candidate pool, keep reading.
Put Your Resume in the Right Places
Marketers understand the importance of knowing who their target audience is and where to find them when creating content. Take this same concept and apply it to your job search. Identify the companies you want to work for and where you can connect with them.
For example, most companies are on social media — LinkedIn, in particular. A quick search will reveal companies that are recruiting for various marketing positions. If you make your resume visible on the platform, these companies can see it and reach out if you’re a good fit. You’ll also be notified of potential matches and can initiate contact yourself.
Another good place to find good companies and put your resume is job search engines. Much like LinkedIn, you can upload your resume to job search engines and make it public for hiring companies.
It’s essential to put your resume in the right places so that it gets in front of the right people. But first, you must identify the companies you want to work for, the roles you’re interested in, and where to find them.
Highlight Unique Soft and Technical Marketing Skills
You’d be surprised how many people just throw together their resume using a generic template. You have a chance to stand out by taking your resume seriously and ensuring it highlights your unique soft and technical marketing skills.
One of the most important skills to highlight is your mastery of search techniques. You’ll cover a lot of topics you don’t know. You’ll need to find new tools and techniques to enhance your marketing strategy.
But there are a million sources out there and not all of them are reliable. Not to mention the overwhelming amount of misinformation we run into.
A master of search techniques knows how to identify reliable and accurate sources. They also know how to extract the most relevant and valuable insights.
Highlighting your search skills on your resume will show potential employers you’re versatile, forward thinking, and capable of tackling topics of all kinds.
If you have these soft and hard skills, be sure to highlight them on your marketing resume as well:
- Soft skills: Creativity, leadership, critical thinking, time management, communication,
project management - Hard skills: Data analysis, content creation, social media management, SEO skills,
copywriting
Include these and any other skills that will speak to your ability as a marketer on your resume.
Also, make sure you aren’t just listing these skills at the bottom of your resume. Really show how you’ve used these skills. For example, if you’re skilled at content creation, talk about the content you’ve produced in previous positions and the results that came from it.
Look at a sample resume to get an idea of how to articulate your skills on your resume and show them in action.
Include Testimonials on Your Resume
You need to sell yourself on your resume. But it’s important it doesn’t come across as bragging and that you can actually back up what you’re saying about yourself. Testimonials are helpful in this regard.
Testimonials are different than references in that you simply provide a reference’s phone number, name, and position to a potential employer and it’s on them to do the rest.
With a testimonial, you get a blurb from the person about their experience working with you and include it on your resume. You can also provide the contact information for the person leaving the testimonial should the employer want to follow up and learn more.
Concluding your resume with a few testimonials from good people on your abilities as a marketer and how amazing you are to work with is a great way to stand out in the crowded candidate pool.
Create an Accompanying Portfolio
Testimonials are great. But a solid portfolio of high-quality work could supercharge your job search and increase the chances of you landing your ideal position.
Look through your past work and see if you have any pieces that you can share publicly. For example, you could use published articles or blog posts. You could show flyers, logos, or website pages you’ve designed. You could link to social media pages you had a hand in growing.
Put all of these things into a digital portfolio and to it in your resume. You could also direct potential employers to your portfolio in your cover letters. If you don’t have any past work to share, consider creating some mock pieces to show your skills.
The marketing field is a tough one to break into because so many people want to. But you’re only a few creative strategies away from standing out in the crowd.
Need more job search advice?
Join Our Discussion
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About the author: Miles Oliver is a freelance contributor whose writing focuses on professional development. You can reach him at moliverpages@gmail.com
