We’re seeing a significant gap within marketing teams with regard to experience – specifically, a shortage of professionals with between three and six years’ experience.
It’s a situation which has come about as a direct result of the financial crash. 2009 – 2012 was an economically challenging period in Ireland, and organisations made very few new hires into Marketing departments, resulting in the number of marketers with between three and six years’ experience being very limited when compared to those with either less than three years or 7+ years.
What is the impact of this experience shortage within Irish marketing teams?
Firstly, the way many Marketing Departments are organised has had to change. You might typically see a highly experienced Director (or Senior Manager or Head of Marketing) in charge of a recently graduated marketing team, with no intermediary level of more experienced marketers.
This results in the team Director having no succession plan. They are likely to be constantly dragged back into taking on roles and duties which they should have progressed from. At the same time, the more junior members of the team are being stretched to perform tasks without any middle management team members available to offer the support, training or mentoring they need.
Because of this situation, senior marketers are commonly experiencing an enforced career plateau, through no fault of their own. And graduates from 2012 onwards are experiencing a block in their departments – with typical issues being little room to progress their career into a people management marketing role, unreasonable workloads, and the expectation that they can perform tasks and deliver results that they have received no training or support for.
The opportunities are there for savvy marketers
This situation means three key opportunities for marketers in the next few years:
For that small percentage of marketers who do fall into the three to six years’ experience bracket, demand and new role opportunities have never been higher.
Hybrid marketers (a topic I touched on in a previous post) are now much more sought after than specialists – with the obvious exception of Data and Analytics – as the emphasis grows on building teams with a rounded skill-set. This promises fantastic future opportunities for those over-stretched junior marketers who are undertaking multiple tasks. It may not feel like it now, but the experience gained will stand you in great stead as your career develops.
‘Digital’ is becoming less of a niche skill… with online/offline multichannel campaigns becoming the norm in both marketing and advertising, employers expect every marketer in the team to be digitally savvy. A client I met earlier in the week put in wonderfully: “If I was going to advertise our company and product on television, I wouldn’t ask for it to be in colour as opposed to black and white.” The same applies to having digital skills as a marketer.
With demand outstripping supply in terms of mid-level marketing roles, this is a great time for those with the necessary experience to seek new opportunities. If you’re looking for a new challenge, you might want to keep an eye on our jobs page and sign up for our monthly email.
