Help! How Do I Find the Right Marketing Career for Me?

So — you want to enter marketing. You’ve asked all the right questions about entering a new industry such as “What should I expect from this career?” or “What goals do I want to achieve in marketing?” But have you ever thought about which field in marketing you want to get into?

Marketing is a very broad and complex industry comprising different areas such as brand marketing, inbound marketing, digital marketing, and more. This is because as customers evolve, companies have to be more creative with how they present their products and services to their target market. For example, influencer marketing did not exist a few years ago; but since more people started to use social media, brands took advantage of these platforms by using social media personalities to promote their services.

At first glance, it may seem that all these marketing areas are very similar to one another; yet upon closer inspection, each specialization serves its own purpose.

Finding your specialization in marketing as a rookie is overwhelming. There are simply too many fields to choose from!

With that, Kalibrr has compiled a list of tips to help you find your marketing specialty!

Tip #1: Know your why.

The first step is to always know your purpose. Ask yourself: why do you want to pursue marketing? What’s in this industry for you?

This is because you need to supply your own drive. You cannot ask other people what motivates them in hopes that you’ll get inspired by the same things. Your why is something that should 100% come from you and what you want to happen in your career.

By knowing your why, you can kickstart your marketing career with intent. You will have an easier time deciding your next step because you have a clear understanding of why you started in the first place.

Whenever you feel overwhelmed, you can quickly go back to your why.

Tip #2: Start small.

The most important part of working in the marketing industry is to actually enter it. Don’t wait for the “perfect” first marketing job (spoiler alert: it probably doesn’t exist anyway!). What’s important during this stage is that you get your foot in the door.

Usually, entry-level marketing jobs require you to wear a lot of hats. You will be exposed to different fields in the industry so you will get the gist of how everything works. Use that opportunity to discover your strengths and weaknesses. Maybe you figured out during your first marketing job that you’re better at copywriting than doing graphic design and visual storytelling, or maybe you enjoy brainstorming content ideas rather than optimizing them for SEO purposes.

The point here is that in these early stages, dipping your toes into numerous fields will help you find what works best for you. It will take time, but remember: this is a marathon, not a race. You don’t need to be an expert immediately.

If you’re looking to jumpstart your marketing journey, here are some entry-level marketing jobs listed in Kalibrr that you might be interested in!

• Marketing Associate — Psychometric, Inc. (WFH)
• Digital Marketing Specialist — Elite Worldgroup (WFH)
• Marketing Officer — Technokids Philippines

Tip #3: Be a life-long learner.

Marketing trends keep on changing, and today will always be different than the next. If you want to be good at what you do, you have to stay on top of these trends and participate in what’s new.

For example, there are a plethora of resources available online that you could use to your advantage! Why don’t you start taking free marketing courses online and get certificates? Or take the initiative and subscribe to marketing newsletters and blogs and browse through the different updates and changes in the industry? You could also listen to podcasts and consume knowledge while doing chores.

Since we’re going in the digital direction, you could even take this one step further by actually practicing your marketing skills on yourself. If you haven’t already, you could build your brand by starting a blog or a social media account and gaining a significant amount of followers.

From there, you could start to understand the different fields in marketing more. Take note of what you’ve learned and liked during the process so you can figure out your specialization. Maybe you enjoyed writing valuable blog content. If that’s the case, maybe you could apply for a job in content marketing! If you enjoyed creating the identity of your social media account — your logo, color scheme, and theme that shares your narrative — why not delve into brand marketing next?

Education does not end in school. Stay curious about your industry and watch your career move forward!

Tip #4: Reach out to people.

Everyone has unique stories about how they went up the marketing ladder. A career isn’t linear and there are multiple ways to get to the same point.

To help find which marketing field will work best for you, you could reach out to senior marketers in your company. Invite them for a coffee break and ask about their experience in the field, their previous jobs, and any advice that they wished they could give to their younger selves that they could now offer to junior marketers like you.

You could also message different marketers on platforms such as LinkedIn and pick their minds. If you don’t have the time, you can simply browse through their profiles and analyze the moves that they have made throughout their career. By learning about their stories and their career paths, hopefully, you can get inspired to kickstart your own.

Tip #5: Make time for self-reflection.

It’s not unusual to feel lost at the start of your marketing career. This happens to absolutely every professional at one point or another!

In entering the marketing industry, you might be tasked with doing different things (again, this is not uncommon in entry-level positions). This can be absolutely draining. What you can do is evaluate and reflect on your roles at present to figure out what you want to pursue in the future. You can ask yourself the following questions:

• Am I doing a good job in this specific role?
• Do I find value in this work?
• Do I bring value to the company when I’m in this role?

By constantly thinking about these, you can start to filter the different marketing industries and find the ones that will work best for you.

Overall, these are some tips that you can utilize to figure out your own marketing specialty. Just remember that everyone’s journey is different and that it’s completely normal to have doubts about where your career is headed. Aside from that, your first job will not determine your whole career. What’s important is that you continue trying different aspects in the marketing industry until you eventually get to a point where you start to feel like things are coming into place.

However, note that specializing in one specific marketing area is definitely not for everyone. Everyone has unique aspirations and desires. If you know in yourself that staying in one field won’t work for you, then don’t feel pressured to do so. Don’t let other people dictate what you can and cannot do.

Kalibrr is a recruitment technology company that aims to transform how candidates find jobs and how companies hire talent. Placing the candidate experience at the center of everything it does, we continue to attract the best talent from all over, with more than 5.5 million professionals and counting. Kalibrr ultimately connects these talents to companies in search of their next generation of leaders.

The only end-to-end recruitment solutions provider in Southeast Asia, Kalibrr is headquartered in Makati, Philippines, with offices in San Francisco, California, and Jakarta, Indonesia. Established in 2012, it has served over 18,000 clients and is backed by some of the world’s most powerful start-up incubators and venture capitalists. These include Y Combinator, Omidyar Network, Patamar Capital, Wavemaker Partners, and Kickstart Ventures.

For more tips on acing job interviews, follow Kalibrr on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Tiktok.