The Marketing Careers Podcast Erik Harbison

For every undergrad marketer, one of the most stressful marketing career moments is securing that first marketing internship.

Any undergrad marketer that has tried to find that first marketing internship has experienced the 'catch-22' of 'how can I land an internship that requires experience, without having experience from an internship?"

No experience? No problem! This episode will spell out the success steps every undergrad marketer can follow in order to create a more focused process, and better results.

Make sure to check out our Marketing Internship Success Kit - bit.ly/tmh_internships

There is one marketing career moment that can be polarizing for many marketing teams.

It's that annual event that every marketer needs to endure...and most of the time, every marketer hates it.

It is the annual marketing performance review.

Marketing performance reviews are all about expectation setting - and they involve two people.

The direct report - who has an opportunity to increase the visibility of their value, or simply go through the motions.

The manager - who has an opportunity to develop trust with their team members, or simply take the easy route.

Very few companies can get this process right. But despite that, there are plenty of missed opportunities for both managers and direct reports to make it a positive experience.

This episode will outline simple 'truths' that every marketer needs to understand about annual performance reviews, and provide key questions you should be asking during your annual performance review (and during your 1x1s), to generate a healthy, valuable discussion...and make annual marketing performance reviews suck less.

A key trend impacting all marketing careers is the adoption and evolution of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) tools.

One of the most popular tools is Chat GPT. It is a tool released by Open.ai, and it is a neural network-based machine learning model that is trained to generate human-like text by predicting the next word in a sequence based on the previous words.

Huh?

In layman's terms, it is an amazing tool that you can provide a prompt, and it can return countless amounts of results that can address any request including translations, summarizations, and text completions.

This episode focuses on 5 specific prompt types you can submit to ChatGPT that can drastically help you with several marketing career moments.

Check the show notes for those specific prompts and links to several A.I. tools every marketer should be testing.

Marketing interview preparation, questions and follow up have been some of the most popular topics covered in this podcast.

This episode is an UPDATED list to the topic of marketing interview questions you should prepare to ASK and ANSWER.

This updated list of questions was inspired by recent marketing career trends that have impacted what areas of the role and company should be the focus of the interview.

The questions to ask shared in this episode now focus on identifying a company's stability and trends for success, or struggle.

The questions to answer shared in this episode now focus on identifying that a candidate has done their proper due diligence and can authenticity 'connect the dots' on why they are a great fit for the marketing role.

"Making things look pretty is not enough..you need to understand the business impact."

This episode's guest shared this as a primary tip for any marketing designer seeking to create a successful career path.

Mike Smith unknowingly started his marketing design career when he was in high school. As a member of the yearbook staff, and a photography enthusiast, he had a connection to visualizing the layout of certain assets and creations.

He spent time in visual design, marketing design and art direction roles before becoming a Design Lead at Reforge.

In this episode, Mike shares specific tips for any marketing designer seeking:
- tips on how to present your portfolio in an interview
- tips on how to manage-up and manage-down on your team
- must-have resources to developing your marketing design skills

It happens to most marketers during their career.

Being part of an unexpected lay off or RIF (Reduction In Force)

This episode reviews THREE key actions - not theories - you can take if you - or someone you know - has been impacted by this devastating marketing career moment, and wants to create a path for success.

A few things to consider when it comes to getting let go from your marketing role unexpectedly...

- Things happen for a reason. Let this be a re-direction. 99% of the time, you will end up in a better role, with a better company and surrounded by great people

- Learn from this experience. You should now be HYPER AWARE of specific criteria or questions that you WILL ask the next company you interview with -- "what has been your client churn in the past 12 months?" , "have you been through a RIF in the last 12 months?", "Are you profitable?"

- Embrace the grieving process. This is a major career moment. It can be traumatic. Feel angry. Feel Sad. Feel depressed. Let your emotions flow. You will eventually embrace and ACCEPT the fact that it will be time to move forward and greater things are in store for you.

This episode will dive deeper into the three actions you can take create a measurable path back to finding your next marketing role:

1. Take a break.
2. Stay active in your relationships, craft and personal brand
3. Set measurable milestones