REQ: Positions in Marketing available?

Basq

Hello all,

Am writing this on behalf of my girlfriend. She is somewhat stuck regarding her job situation.

She has just completed a Marketing Degree with First Class Honours.. and is currently searching for work in any area of marketing.

But all jobs online and newspaper all want experience but she has no experience. She's extremely motivated and hard-working!

Anyone help her out with vacancies (or recommendations for finding work that require no experience)?

Thanks in advance!

Gillo

Your girlfriend and roughly over 1000 other people are in the same boat, just out of college and looking for work.

What I'd suggest is to start right at the bottom, there is no use have the paper if you don't have the experience, maybe if she she's some of the promations companies that would be a help, I know its not exactly a the most interesting job, but if she works hard she should be able to move up the ladder there fairly quickly and then move sidways into the area of marketing she is interested in.

Despite not having any experience I assume that she has worked part-time at least? What she needs to do is concentrate on her CV, believe me, very few people actually write a decent CV, and I've seen my fair share of them.
EG; instead of just starting the usual tasks she did in a shop, why not point out that fact that she was involved in implementing various offer's and merchandsing, designing display etc.

Theres also no harm in canvassing various marketing companies / departments, she'll get a lot of no letters but may be lucky and get that one golden letter also.

Hopefully that'll help.

nesf

The advice above is spot on.

There is very little chance of her just walking into a job straight out of her degree. She needs to get her foot in the door first. That should be easier to do because she's got those nice little letters after her name.

A word of advice on top of the above. Get her to "round out" her CV. In my experience it is not a good plan to just focus on your degree. Mention hobbies, extra-curricular activities etc. She needs to appear like a well rounded, well balanced person in her CV. Few companies want to hire a pure academic.

In marketing there is a whole lot more than the theory. She should have interests to reflect this.

Perhaps get her to offer her services to free to a few charitable orginisations on a voluntary basis while she draws the dole? It will give her some practical experience and she might find the work fulfilling

Basq

Thanks for the excellent advice, gillo and nesf!

I do realise that there are many more in the same position as her... but it just seems very frustrating! I think what frustrates her more is that she sends out CV's to loads of companies and rarely gets a response to say even 'thank you for applying but unfortunately..'. I think she's still waiting to hear back from a well-known insurance firm who called her about an interview. So hopefully something will come of that.

Her CV is more than adequate.. but maybe i'll ask her to revise it before sending it out again.

I'm in the same position somewhat.. i'm going back to complete my degree in Computing next year. And all i've read about on the Computing employment front this year was the mass numbers of vacant posts available in the field. Yet i know people who've finished their degrees and can't get work anywhere as everywhere requires at least 3 - 5 years experience. A common cliche i'm sure asked before but.. how do we get experience if we can't get work?!

I'm nearing the end of 4 months work placement.. an excellent opportunity and i'm realy enjoying it. The experience is fantastic but the duration is not nearly enough to satisfy most job applications nowadays.

Anyways.. thanks again for the excellent advice.. i'll pass it on to her (and also take heed of it myself)!