Marketing Jobs
In my current job I see a lot of people undergoing job transitions and looking to expand their networks in order to improve their chances of future job placement. Today I met a very interesting woman who had a very similar profile to mine, minus the international experience. She wanted to talk to me given my similar profile in Marketing and see how I saw the job market these days. She seemed to think that it's harder and harder to find jobs in Marketing in Peru these days. One of the reasons? It seems that because of the economic downturn and the uncertainty about the election results (sounds just like the US, I know) companies are cutting back on Marketing budgets. Sounds familiar right?
DON'T. CUT. BACK. ON. MARKETING. BUDGETS. FOLKS. Maybe there's some fat that you can trim here and there, maybe you change your marketing vehicles in favor of more cost efficient ones like Digital (and I'm not saying you should), maybe you focus more on Trade Marketing or Price Promotion to communicate value, etc. But don't ever get rid of your Marketing efforts in a crisis. It's only going to hurt you in the long run. Only those companies that continue to spend through this crisis will come out on top once the crisis is over. It's even "intuitively obvious" like my professors used to say at MIT. Why do we refuse to learn from the mistakes of the past? When was the last time you cut Marketing dollars and ended up meeting your sales goals for the same period? Me? Never.
Second problem? Companies (at least here in Peru) want an experienced candidate like the one I met today (or maybe even myself). But the glitch? They want to pay that candidate like they just graduated from college. It doesn't work that way. Like some of my Product Supply folks at P&G used to say, you have three variables: Good, Cheap, and Fast. You can pick two but not three. You can't expect a rock star Marketing person and pay them a college graduate salary! You get EXACTLY what you pay for. So if you're looking to save some money in this crisis by lowering your salaries to the point where you end up with college grads, fine. But don't expect them to have experience and know how. Don't expect them to be loyal. And don't expect them to stick around for long. They might be with you temporarily, but the minute someone else offers them more money they will jump at the chance. Experience comes at a price. And mine, at least, isn't cheap.
DON'T. CUT. BACK. ON. MARKETING. BUDGETS. FOLKS. Maybe there's some fat that you can trim here and there, maybe you change your marketing vehicles in favor of more cost efficient ones like Digital (and I'm not saying you should), maybe you focus more on Trade Marketing or Price Promotion to communicate value, etc. But don't ever get rid of your Marketing efforts in a crisis. It's only going to hurt you in the long run. Only those companies that continue to spend through this crisis will come out on top once the crisis is over. It's even "intuitively obvious" like my professors used to say at MIT. Why do we refuse to learn from the mistakes of the past? When was the last time you cut Marketing dollars and ended up meeting your sales goals for the same period? Me? Never.
Second problem? Companies (at least here in Peru) want an experienced candidate like the one I met today (or maybe even myself). But the glitch? They want to pay that candidate like they just graduated from college. It doesn't work that way. Like some of my Product Supply folks at P&G used to say, you have three variables: Good, Cheap, and Fast. You can pick two but not three. You can't expect a rock star Marketing person and pay them a college graduate salary! You get EXACTLY what you pay for. So if you're looking to save some money in this crisis by lowering your salaries to the point where you end up with college grads, fine. But don't expect them to have experience and know how. Don't expect them to be loyal. And don't expect them to stick around for long. They might be with you temporarily, but the minute someone else offers them more money they will jump at the chance. Experience comes at a price. And mine, at least, isn't cheap.
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