People are motivated to work in Marketing for various reasons, as this discipline offers a diverse range of opportunities and challenges. Spending some time reflecting on why you want to get into Marketing is essential for job satisfaction as well as preparing for interviews.
To identify your motivations for a Marketing career, take some time to reflect on the following questions:
1- Does Marketing align with your personal and professional interests?
2- Can you leverage your skills and strengths in a Marketing role?
3- Can working in Marketing help you achieve your broader life goals?
If you are not sure how to tackle those questions, here are some guidance for some self-reflection.
1 – What are your personal and professional interests?
Identifying your interests in life is a crucial step to shape a fulfilling and satisfying career.
For some personal introspection, think about the following:
• What do you enjoy doing in your free time?
• What activities, hobbies and subjects captivate your attention, bring you joy and make you lose track of time?
• What types of books, movies, podcasts, social media content do you gravitate towards?
• If you had a day off with no obligations, how would you choose to spend it?
If you are into journaling and documenting your daily activities, you can use this to reflect on what activities you enjoy the most and see if there are recurring themes.
When it comes to working out your professional interests, think about the following:
• Looking back on your past jobs or projects, which ones did you enjoy the most and why?
• Who do you admire professionally? Who are your role models and why?
• What type of work would you personally find fulfilling?
As you understand what Marketing is about, can see you a connection with your personal and professional interests?
2- What are your skills and strengths?
Identifying what you are good at is an essential step in personal and professional development.
For this, use a combination of self-reflection, feedback and assessment tools to give you a comprehensive understanding of your key skills and strengths.
Start by asking yourself the following questions:
• What tasks (at home, work, uni) come naturally to you and you enjoy doing without feeling like a chore? (these often align with our strengths)
• In what jobs / projects do you perform the best and why?
• What key achievements you are proud of and how did you accomplish those?
• What feedback do you get from performance evaluations at work or uni? Do you see some key themes recurring?
If you are getting stuck answering those questions or want to gain a broader perspective on your strengths (as well as your development areas), ask for some feedback.
Reach out to friends, family, teachers, work colleagues, line managers, mentors. They will provide insights into the qualities you have but are not always aware of.
You can also take advantage of online assessments, quizzes and tests to help you further identify your skills and strengths as well as understand more about your personality type.
Once you have listed your skills and strengths, categorise them into 3 buckets:
• Technical
• Inter-personal
• Leadership
Many skills are required in Marketing, so take the time to understand those and see where you already have an advantage.
Don’t worry if you don’t tick all the boxes. Remember that our skills and strengths will evolve over time through learning, on the job experience, training and continuous self-development.
Keep assessing yourself and getting feedback from others regularly so you are truly self-aware of your capabilities and adjust your self-perception where necessary.
3 – What are your long-term goals in life?
Not an easy question. Yet, a very important one.
As you start your professional life or change career direction, it is always useful to understand where you want to be in the long term and how your current / latest jobs get you closer to that destination.
To help you with this self-reflection, think about:
• What are your broader life aspirations and goals?
• What is your Purpose? Do you know your WHY?
• What is your long-term career goal? What impact on the world do you want to have with your professional life?
• How do your career and broader life goals fit together?
This might take you some time to think about. And it is likely that the answers to those questions will change as you move on through your life.
To help you ponder further on the tricky yet important topic of Life Purpose, look into the Ikigai concept.
This Japanese framework, although simple in its approach, should give you a lot of food for thought.
With all this self-reflection work, you should be able to identify your motivations for a Marketing career.
Take the time to also connect with professionals, read the Marketing press and get some practical experience. This will give you a good idea of what Marketing is about in real life and help you decide if this is the right career path for you.
Remember that Marketing roles come in different shapes and sizes so hopefully you find a great match for your interests, skills set and long-term aspirations in life.