Careers & Internships

A degree in Marketing qualifies graduates for many choices in available occupations:

Sales and Customer Service
Opportunities are available with manufacturers, as well as wholesale and retail firms. Might also consider a wide range of products and customers since college graduates will be found selling products ranging from massive computer installations to women’s apparel. Opportunities to become a department head, buyer, or store manager within 15 months to 3 years, quick advancement to middle management positions.

Product Management
Many companies have given managers and their subordinates major responsibility in the determination of customer needs, and the translation of these needs into a combination of goods and services designed to satisfy the demands of their market. Here marketing people work closely with engineers, manufacturing executives, or others concerned with the product offer of the firm.

Marketing Research
This field has grown rapidly in importance over the past decade. People in this field gather information needed by management relative to its customers and the marketing environment within which the firm operates, as well as data necessary for internal control.

Advertising, Sales Promotion
Concerned with the employment of news media, such as television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and other devices to present goods or services to the potential market and to aid the work of the personal sales force by reducing initial buyer resistance. Careers in advertising may be pursued both within independent agencies as well as within advertising departments of manufacturing, wholesale, and retail firms.

Sports, Sponsorships & Event Marketing
Enter a fast growing industry that incorporates developing valued relationships between customers (fans), clients (sponsors), and clubs (teams/events). Use your expertise in sales, advertising & promotion, and sports business to work with corporations, nonprofit organizations, or sports teams. Find out more about sponsorship careers at www.sponsorship.com.

Transportation and Logistics
Concerned with the movement of raw materials and finished products through the economic system. Has expanded greatly during the past five years. A career in logistics requires a greater degree of sophistication in mathematical and computer techniques than any other.

Small Business
A major in marketing provides excellent background for persons planning to start their own business or planning to work in a small business situation, particularly in the area of retailing or services.

Buying-Purchasing
Increasing interest in many retail and manufacturing firms has been focused on the purchasing function. Most buying career positions require the bachelor’s degree and a period of training within a specific industry.

Governmental Agencies, Hospitals, Charitable Organizations, Schools and Universities
A large number of non-business organizations are rapidly recognizing the need for marketing managers. Thus, a number of public information, consumer relations, pricing analysis and marketing analyst positions are opening in these organizations.

International Marketing
Concerned with the sales of goods and services in foreign markets. This may include working in the export department of a large company, working for an import/export broker, or actual sales and marketing management positions in foreign countries.

International Business Management
Opportunities are available to work at corporate headquarters dealing with foreign subsidiaries or foreign business partners of the domestic firm. Opportunities also exist for foreign management assignments. Finally, an increasing number of opportunities are becoming available to work for foreign companies who have started U.S. operations. International Business Management may include dealing with a wide variety of management problems. A significant percentage of managers chosen for international business management positions are recruited from the people with a marketing background, because marketing is the business function that most directly deals with the business environment, both domestic and foreign.

Requirements for a Marketing Position
The majority of Marketing positions require an outgoing personality, clarity in self-expression, and some skill in the area of human relations. Such qualities as personal motivation, dependability, initiative, drive, and creativity are stressed most by employers. Other positions in marketing, such as marketing research, also require that a person possess analytical ability to identify and solve problems based on quantitative and qualitative data. Find out if you are left or right brain dominant by taking this little test at:

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Additional Educational Requirements
The only area that would specifically require additional education would be Marketing Research. In that area, an M.B.A. is desirable.

Employment Services or Agencies
There are a large number of professional agencies which list openings. Classified advertising sections of major newspapers also list openings. Professional organizations normally provide placement services at national conferences.

Professional Organizations
American Marketing Association; various other national and regional associations, some of which emphasize sales, advertising, transportation, etc.

Rate of Unemployment in Field
Comparatively low, affected primarily by willingness to locate where jobs are available.

Advancement Potential
CEOs and Presidents frequently have backgrounds in marketing and sales. A sampling of results taken from the most recent compensation studies (Chuck Paustian,   ©Marketing News, February 12, 2001)  provide an understanding of opportunities in marketing careers:

• Top marketing executives—responsible for all marketing activities, including advertising, public relations and market research, but not sales—the median total compensation was $82,500 in 2000, down 2.9% from $85,000 the previous year. That dip, however, was offset by a 206.7% increase in the median bonus to $18,400 from $6,000 in 1999.
• Assistant marketing directors, who assist with such things as planning, organizing and meeting profit objectives, saw their median total compensation increase 8.7% to $73,500 from $67,625 the previous year.
• Product and brand managers, who coordinate all promotional and marketing programs related to a specific brand or product group, saw their median total compensation remain flat at $65,000, but the median bonus was cut 20% to $4,000 from $5,000.
• Market research analysts, who conduct market analyses, consumer research studies, territorial analyses and other types of economic studies, saw their median total compensation climb to $58,000 in 2000—a 45% increase from $40,000 a year earlier. The median bonus, however, fell 25% to $6,000 from $8,000 in 1999.

Internships
Students planning to complete an internship need to send the completed Internship Approval Form to Lisa_Tyus@baylor.edu.  The Internship Approval Form may be downloaded here.