by Richard Blazevich
October 2019
While every marketing job is different, employers look for similar skills when they’re hiring marketers. As such, there are 5 skills you should feature on your resume to get your dream marketing job.
1. Creativity
Companies hire marketers to think of ideas other employees wouldn’t come up with. Marketers should be generating creative ways to grab the attention of customers, inspire the sales team, and gain an advantage over competitors. As such, your resume should include examples of what you’ve done to develop creative ideas that have delivered business results.
Here are examples of bullet points that demonstrate this skill:
- Developed creative social media posts that increased click-through rates by 20%
- Developed innovative product ideas that are projected to deliver $100K in incremental revenue
- Developed creative selling materials that have been used to increase product distribution by 12%
2. Leadership
In many companies, marketers lead teams of cross-functional employees and agency representatives to develop new product ideas, distribution strategies, and advertising campaigns. That means marketers must show they have strong leadership skills before employers will hire them.
Here are a few bullet points that show leadership ability:
- Led cross-functional team to launch new products with over $1MM in sales
- Led agency team to develop marketing campaign that delivered over 2MM impressions
- Led process improvement team to develop new media approach projected to deliver $100K in cost savings
3. Analytical Skills
Often, marketers are called upon to analyze data and make business recommendations based on what the data tells them. This could involve looking at consumer research results, marketplace trends, or competitive sales information.
Examples of analytical bullet points could include the following:
- Analyzed data and identified opportunities to increase household penetration by 15%
- Analyzed data and identified new product opportunities projected to deliver $500K in sales
- Analyzed data and identified opportunities to reduce agency fees by $100K
4. Strategic Thinking
While strategic thinking might seem similar to analytical skills, they’re actually quite different. Analytical skills involve looking at data and formulating recommendations. Strategic thinking means you can define an objective, assess options for reaching that objective, and picking the best option to pursue.
Here are ways to show strategic thinking skills on your resume:
- Developed advertising strategy that delivered 5% increase in awareness among target audience
- Developed innovation strategy that resulted in $100K increase in sales
- Developed distribution strategy that increased number of stores offering product line by 18%
5. Communication Skills
It’s common for marketers to be guest speakers at customer meetings and industry events. Therefore, strong communication skills are essential. That means demonstrating the ability to present important information in clear, inspiring ways.
Here are examples of ideas for showing communication skills on your resume:
- Featured as general session speaker at 4 national sales meetings
- Presented marketing trends as guest speaker at 3 industry conferences
- Presented annual marketing plans at 3 board of directors meetings
Now that you know these 5 critical skills that marketing recruiters look for, make sure your resume includes examples of your experiences that demonstrates them.
If you’d like more tools to help you write your winning resume, or if you want ideas for any other aspect of your job search, check out www.AmazingJobSkills.com. That site includes links to books, online courses, and articles to help in every aspect of job hunting.
Best wishes in getting your next big job.
Richard Blazevich
About the Author:
Richard Blazevich is an author and online instructor who helps people get the jobs they want. You can find his portfolio of books, online classes, and blog articles at www.AmazingJobSkills.com.
As a marketing executive for a Fortune 100 company, he has led campus recruiting for one of the most successful marketing departments in the consumer products industry. In doing so, he learned what recruiters look for and discovered the secrets to becoming an irresistible job candidate.
In addition to being an author and online instructor, Richard teaches job hunting classes and interview workshops at some of the top universities in the United States. His training sessions include the following topics:
- How to build targeted job search strategies
- How to write effective resumes and cover letters
- How to develop amazing interview skills
Please contact him at www.linkedin.com/in/richard-blazevich if you’d like more information about his job hunting tools and workshops.