What Employers Get Wrong About Marketing Roles*

If you asked someone who had never worked in the marketing industry before or even heard of it, to take a look at a bunch of current job ads for marketing positions, they’d probably be able to give you an answer when you asked them what a marketing manager does. 

Thanks to COVID, there are more skilled marketers than ever before looking for work, but they often come up against employers who have no idea what marketing is, what it involves and what a fair salary for the job is.

Here are some of the most common issues faced by marketers today. 

Sales & Marketing Are Different Things

Queue a collective eye-roll from marketers when they see this listed as a job title. Yes, marketing is an essential part of generating leads, and both functions have to work cohesively to be successful, but being responsible for both sales and marketing from end to end is a recipe for disaster. Most trained marketers are not salespeople and don’t want to be, which is why it’s frustrating when employers can’t see the difference. Unless the role is very high level and oversees the sales and marketing functions, then it’s going to be very difficult to find the right person, which is why these positions often crop up time and again. 

They Try To Combine Roles To Save Money

Sometimes, employers have overly high requirements when it comes to what a marketing position is expected to do. Often, you’ll see a list of required skills that rolls every job you can think of into one. After the general prerequisites on education and experience, you’ll find things like must be skilled in Adobe, video editing, HTML, social media management, copywriting, SEO, PR, website development, graphic design, be an influencer. The list goes on. Now, most of these skills are job titles in their own right. What the company is actually looking for is a way not to spend money on the necessities of a good marketing strategy and instead try and farm them out to an internal role. It’s impossible to be solely responsible for all of these areas. You need the right people carrying out these tasks or it’s going to reflect badly on the company. So instead of having an intern try to shoot the corporate video, get a company like Rhoda Pond Productions and use a proper web development company rather than trying to build your own from a template.

The Salaries Are Laughable

A trained or experienced marketer is an asset to any business, but you wouldn’t know it look at the salaries on offer. There has been an increase of job ads requiring marketers to have many years of experience and a high level of skills, but offering a salary that would barely turn the head of an entry-level candidate. It devalues the entire profession. 

They Use Job Titles As Perks

In order to justify paying younger, less experienced marketers a fair salary, companies dangle a great job title in front of them. Being Head of Marketing might sound good, but not when you’re being paid less than a marketing assistant at another company. 

Conclusion

When unemployment is high, and a lot of young people are struggling to get a foot on the career ladder, the power is very much in the hands of the employers when it comes to finding a role. However, knowing what you’re worth and what you can bring to a company is more important in the long run and could stop you from making a bad decision.