Entry-Level Positions For Aspiring Marketers
Anna, Founder & CEO of Mustard & Moxie, highlights two entry-level paths for aspiring marketers: the corporate route, where one "starts at the bottom and works [their] way up," and the agency route, offering diverse client experiences and exposure to various marketing sectors. A strong understanding of marketing best practices, storytelling, and current marketing technology—including expertise in specific platforms—"can be really good in boosting your resume," a skillset particularly valuable given the time constraints of more senior professionals.
Marketing, Agency Experience, Corporate Experience, Technology in Marketing, Entry-Level Marketing Jobs
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Anna Boudinot
Founder & CEO
Mustard & Moxie
New York University, 2000
UCLA Anderson MBA
Film, Media Arts, Visual Arts
Nonprofit, Foundations & Grantmaking, Advertising, Communications & Marketing
Entrepreneurship and Business Owner
Scholarship Recipient, LGBTQ
Video Highlights
1. Entry-level marketing jobs can be found in-house at corporations or at marketing agencies.
2. In corporate roles, you'll gain experience in all aspects of marketing, learning from both successes and failures.
3. Agency roles offer diverse client experiences across various industries, helping you identify your niche and build expertise in specific marketing techniques and technologies.
Transcript
What entry-level positions are there in this field that an undergraduate college student might consider? For someone who's interested in getting into marketing?
Even if you want to run your own marketing agency someday, there are two different paths, and I think there's value on either side. I went the corporate route, so I worked in-house for big corporations that had their own internal marketing and communications team. I started at the bottom and worked my way up, learning everything there was to learn in that environment.
I started just as a copywriter and as someone who could manage social media, but I was always asking, "Can I try this out? Can I learn this? Can I give it a shot?" So, I understood the components of a successful marketing program.
I also learned what the components of an unsuccessful marketing program were, because not all the companies I worked for were successful in that realm. The other route you can take is the agency route. This involves getting an entry-level job at a big or medium-sized agency.
There, you're interacting directly with clients and have the opportunity to work with multiple different clients at once. You could be working on an automobile manufacturer on one side and a beauty product on the other. Learning about different marketing tactics, techniques, and strategies for those different industry sectors is really valuable.
On the agency side, it can also help you hone in on where you might want to go. On the corporate side, you might decide, "Hey, I love marketing for beauty products, but please don't put me on another car project."
Whether you're on the corporate side or the agency side, understanding best practices for marketing and storytelling is important. Also, understanding the tech is really important to learn. I'm in a place where I hire people to do tech stuff for me, but I have to know why they're doing it, how it works, and what it's supposed to achieve. I have to keep updated on the variety of different tech platforms used in all sorts of marketing.
This might be a good entry point for undergrads, because people who are higher up are less well-versed in the current tech and frankly don't have the time to learn it. So, if you find that you're an expert on a certain platform, that can be really good for boosting your resume.