Key Resume Skills to Land Your Next Marketing Job
Do you want to work in marketing? Great! Job opportunities are plentiful, but so is the pool of candidates you’ll be competing against, and you need to make sure your resume can stand out from the crowd. But what skills are top employers really looking for, and how can you optimize your resume to land your dream job in marketing?
Stand Out with Must-Have Marketing Skills
Marketing is a wide umbrella, and jobs in the marketing category can encompass skills from across the spectrum of public relations, strategy, sales, writing, design, web development, and more. The ZipRecruiter Marketplace Research Team finds that the most common marketing job skills and keywords referenced in their job postings are: Marketing Planning, Social Media, Collaboration, Technical, Marketing Campaign, Innovation, and Communication Skills, as well as terms such as MBA, Adobe Products, Proactive, Forecasting, Graphic Design, and Lead Generation.
You’ll notice there are both “hard” and “soft” skills in the mix. Hard skills are measurable, definitive, and teachable abilities like proficiency in a certain software or experience performing specific tasks. “Marketing Planning,” “Adobe Products,” and “Graphic Design” are all examples of hard skills from ZipRecruiter’s list.
Soft skills, like collaboration, communication, and creativity are harder to quantify but are just as important since they shape your professional personality and inform your ability to work with others and deal with difficult situations.
Employers value both, so make sure you’re prepared with resume examples that show you have what it takes.
Make the Most of Your Marketing Job Search
To make the most of your job search, first, spend some time thinking about your career priorities. Are you looking for a marketing job with similar responsibilities but with more leadership potential? Are you looking for a culture change like a workplace that’s more focused on creativity? Or are you looking to shift your marketing career focus altogether?
Browsing job listings that meet your goal criteria will give you a good idea of the must-have skills employers are looking for in those specific areas. Seeing which keywords match up to your unique set of skills will give you a good idea of where you might fit best and can provide insight into how you can craft the perfect resume that will get you noticed.
How to Lay Out Your Marketing Resume
Think of your resume as another marketing project, except this time the product is you! It’s your job to maximize the skills you already have to best appeal to your ideal “customer.”
When it comes to laying out the perfect marketing resume, Tammy Spenziero, director of Excelsior University’s Career Readiness Center, advises that you consider these three core elements:
- Content: Keep it clean, lean, and appealing
- Format: Clearly showcase accomplishments
- Design: Use a look and feel appropriate for your field, industry, and level of experience
- Exclude personal pronouns or any abbreviations and maintain a business-appropriate tone.
- Do not use a photo or include general hobbies, interests, and activities.
- Do not feel you need to limit your resume to one page or follow a template; make it your own!
- Don’t list references on the resume itself. These will be requested separately.
- List experiences starting with your most recent position.
- Stay honest, authentic, and accurate; don’t embellish.
- Quantify successes using metrics and data when possible.
- Proofread! Have someone else in your field take a second look.
- Consider adding sections for:
- Leadership
- Volunteer Work
- Professional Affiliations or Academic Groups
- Honors and Awards
- Presentations and Publications
Ensure Your Key Marketing Skills Stand Out
Having a good basic resume doesn’t mean you should use it for every application. Read each job description carefully, do some research on the company, and then organize your resume around the specific skills the position requires.
Hiring managers often scan for keywords on a resume during their initial review so you want to make it easy for them determine if you’re a potential good fit for the job. If the business has a large online presence, for example, you’d do well to highlight any SEO or social media work you’ve done. If you’re after a job in a non-profit or government agency, you may want to play up any projects with donors, volunteers, or the public. Even if you’re new to an industry, you can find ways to pull out examples from your previous experience that will make your skills relatable.
If you are lucky enough to get that all-important first interview, make sure you come prepared with a few of your “greatest hits,” stories that show and tell how you’ve used those key marketing skills. Employers are looking for narratives that illustrate how you behave in certain situations using specific examples, not vague generalities, of your success on various projects.
Finally, remember all marketing pros know that good communication and a little confidence goes a long way in letting your skills shine. Good Luck!
While your resume will be unique to you, Spenziero also shares some key resume tips that everyone can use.
