Stuck in a dead end career
I am trying to get out of market research into more general marketing(or something entirely different). However, because I haveabsolutely no client or supervisory experience, I have no transferableskills to speak of. I would be willing to start at the bottomagain if I could actually afford to go from earning 60K a year backdown to 38K a year. I need to get out of this rut before its toolate. What kind of market research are you in? There are lots of types of marketing jobs that aren' t supervisory or client-facing. Do you work in an agency of some sort vs. in-house. Tell us more.
Well, I write the surveys, I work with the data and fieldwork teams, I usually am in charge with the first draft of the reports. I've worked mainly in the communications side of market research, doing the message testing, the ad testing. I also usually write which messages test. Yes, I work in an agency. The problem is that marketing is such a poor paying field that unless I take a manager's job, which I am not qualified for, I am back to earning 38,000 a year if I were to start applying for associates positions.
So, from a marketing perspective, you can....
But I don' t want to stay in research. That' s the problem. Ihate it and I seriously think I' m going blind after all these yearsreading data books in 6 point font. I' ve looked at othermarketing jobs and I' m not qualified for any of them. I haveworked on several communications campaigns for some pretty high profileclients (and even one presidential candidate) but they all want someonewith supervisory experience or someone who knows a particularsoftware or someone who interacts with clients. I have beensearching for many months and there isn' t a job I want that I amactually qualified for. Example: Here is a job that one would think I would be qualifiedfor and am not (and I don' t even really want this job). 3- 5 years of demonstrated success and substantive experience with project development and employee management; developing and/ordelivering education services or programs; outreach, communications, orcustomer service; and team leadership; Sorry, no employee management experience. Interaction with telecommunications, education, or policy constituencies desired. Sorry, don' t interact with people outside of my co-workers and my vendors. I guess the purpose of my query is to figure out just how I can get outof research into something more worthwhile. I am sure that myanalytical and research skills are useful to someone but at the sametime, what' s really killing me is the lack of client or supervisoryexperience and what careers should I be looking to. A few months ago, someone from a headhunting company pointed me towardsMarketing Analytics which is more substantive than surveyresearch. However, I haven' t done ROI and Customer Lifetime Valueanalysis since college so I' m not entirely qualified for positions(which is probably why the headhunter probably stopped talking to methe minute I sent him my resume). If you really want to get out of marketing research but stay in research of some form or another, there are lots of areas you can fit your skills into. What you would need to do for some of these positions would be to get a certificate or even degree in that field. In order to do this, you would need to keep your job at the same time. It is obvious that you know a great deal about paying attention to detail and where to look to find what you are looking for with minimum fuss. Your experience with writing reports and gathering the information for these reports can work in a lot of different areas. For some reason the two that popped out at me after your first post were:
After your last post, I felt that Architecture would also work well with your abilities. Again, you would most likely need to get some type of certification or degree. In the meantime (as if that wasn't enough work to advance your happiness), have you tried to approach your boss for any type of challenges that you feel you would like to face. Maybe cross training in another department or even conducting training classes for new hires and/or existing employees in new procedures, more efficient procedures and refresher courses in established procedures. This is a fourth person story but, I had a friend who told me about her sister-in-law's cousin who thought she wanted to quit her job at a outbound call center doing telephone surveys. She hated it but lives in San Francisco so couldn't afford to quit. She went to her boss and told him that she wasn't feeling challenged and was bored with doing surveys all the time and people hanging up on her. He had been thinking the same thing about many people so asked her to think up ways to evaluate the behaviour of her coworkers and ways to work around that behaviour and raise the moral of the office. She did this and by the time official evaluations were due for merit raises, COL raises, etc., moral had been raised and employees did fare better on their overall performance scores. Long story short: A little over a year later she applied for a job that stressed managerial relations within the office setting. She listed her new job duties for that requirement. During the interview, she stated that the job was more ceremonial than anything else because she told her boss that she was bored. That part didn't matter because the duties themselves qualified as managerial. She got the job and now (4 years later) makes twice what she did at the survey telemarketing job. Oh, and it is with an advertising agency. Something she had no experience with and knew little about. Hello, in reading the text for your ideal position sent earlier, you have described several not for profit positions. I have hired almost every level for associations and non profit organizations and I would give you close consideration. Have you thought about that? I am not sure of your career goals, but many of those positions would be Director of Marketing/Communications or Manager and similiar verbiage. Your experience would be valuable and you would be part of a team and an organization with heavy client/donor/member/community contact and allow for development in that area. Good stepping stone for future positions. For association work, it is usually the state capitols that you will find positions. Advocacy, lobbying, etc are many times the reason for the association and coalitions. You would also find in a position such as above, there would also be contact with policy makers, state agencies, universities for those communication and advocacy issues but also for education, the second reason most associations are in existence. So, there would be additional value for your skills. On a completely other note, I have a friend employed at a law firm and there is a staffer in the marketing department who performs conflict research, business trend and IT (large IP department at this firm), etc and it seems to be an innovative position, lots of free rein and analysis. It also allows that individual to attend governor's balls, and the like and lots of networking opportunities in that. Hope this helps with some options, I wish you the very best success. You have said a few times that you have no transferable skills (or something like that) and that you don' t qualify for many of the jobs that you might be interested in. I would suggest you start by getting a second opinion on those facts. First, everyone has transferable skills, the question is knowing what those skills are and then finding the right job match. Have you considered investing in a qualified job skill assessment? I call this an investment because a good assessment will cost you, but the value is worth it. You need to know what skills you have besides reading small print. Second, I have been hired for positions where I didn' t meet 100% of the stated job requirements. But, I applied for the positions because I strongly believed that I could perform the duties of the position. I showed up for the interviews and let the employer make the decision. However, I also walked away from an interview in one case when I realized I didn' t have the job skills. So, if you believe you can do the work, apply. Then be honest and thorough with the employer so that they can assess whether or not you are a good match. Don' t sell yourself short. I believe you have skills that match some good jobs out there. You just have to do the work to recognize those skills and then find those jobs. | |
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