Written by Gemma Hirst.

If you have chosen to start your marketing career at university, that is a great choice and I wish you the best of luck in your adventure. However, you will be interested to know that you can do more than study to improve your chances of getting a role in marketing.

University Media 

If you are studying marketing or any degree in the arts/media faculty, then you will most likely be encouraged to engage with the university’s media channels. Whether that be their student radio, tv, magazine or social media channels- I recommend getting involved in those. 

Using your skills learnt from your marketing degree to promote your university is a great asset to your portfolio and a conversation starter during an interview. You may be saying, “yes, but I only used the student Twitter account, Gemma” - no you didn’t. You were accountable for representing the university’s student brand by creating digital content on the social media channel of Twitter, to engage with their followers to promote the university. 

Even if you were only using the university digital platforms for a short time, it does not matter. It means you can graduate from university with some examples in your portfolio and employers will appreciate that. 

Make friends with your teachers 

I know this sounds strange but stick with me, your university lecturers are industry experts and most of them will have worked in the industry for a long time. When you have the opportunity to talk to your lecturers, ask them questions about how they started and what advice they can pass on to you. This is something I did when I was at university and after I graduated I made sure that I stayed in touch with them, through LinkedIn and email. 

Networking with your lecturers is also useful for gaining employment, they can give you a reference or support you in your job application. Also, they can often help you if you need some advice about a job you are in, I was worried about a role that I was in and felt worried that I could not perform to my best ability, after talking to my lecturer I felt better about my job and knew I had nothing to worry about.

I also often find that my lecturers email me jobs that they think I would be suited for, which is really helpful. 

Career Support 

Your university will have a career support service, from job hunting, cv and cover letter writing, interview techniques to using LinkedIn properly. If you want to walk out of your university with a degree and a gold standard profile then definitely using the career support service can help you.

I didn’t even have LinkedIn till I got career support, my work coach showed me how to complete my profile, how to connect with professionals and how to search for a job. 

I found it really useful and it is a skill that I take forward when networking on LinkedIn. 

Network Professionals 

During my time at university, we were lucky enough to have ‘industry days’. Where experts from the media would come in to give talks on their experience and what it is like working in marketing, journalism, radio etc. We would listen to every word they say and take notes etc. But one thing that not many students did (but something I did) was after the talk, go and say hello, introduce myself and comment on what I enjoyed from the talk and say what I liked about their company. From that, I would get their business card and was able to network with them.

In the marketing industry, it is not what you know but who you know so having contacts in the marketing field is going to come in handy when trying to develop your career. 

Work Experience 

Whether it is something that you have to do as part of your course or something you want to do as an extra, the university should be able to help you in gaining work experience. You can tell them what you are looking for, what marketing agency you want to go into or a brand or a marketing campaign you like. The university should be able to support you in finding that work experience. 

Once you have completed the work experience, you can put it on your cv and talk about it in a job application. Even if it was organised by your university, it does not matter. It makes you stand out from other applicants.

Just when you thought that going to university was all about graduating with a degree, turns out there is more to it. There are more opportunities to further your career in marketing whilst at university.

Learn more about teaming up with Lead Kinetics! We’re always after talking to graduate talent!