What do you look for in a job?
Think about your last job. What did you love about it? What did you hate about it? Expand on these and get to the heart of what you actually loved and hated.
To find out what I looked for in a job, I thought about a few of my past
I have an interest in going into marketing. I break down the why in a past blog post. But what if I was wrong? What if what I imagine the role to be like and what it’s actually like are totally different?
It was time to flex my networking muscles and find out.
I went to LinkedIn and began looking for marketing professionals. I expanded my network to find these people, and I chose some with biographies matching what I thought I wanted to do. I asked these professionals questions related primarily to my likes, and I found their answers to be varied.
Here’s what I liked and disliked about past jobs:
Favorite aspects of past jobs:
Whenever I advised someone, I loved seeing them take my advice/instruction and it actually
I loved the loose structure we had on roles so I had the ability to move around and help where I saw help was needed.
I enjoyed making connections with a few co-workers and having them to fall back on if I ever needed help, but I’ve only worked in smaller circles.
I loved getting to think of different ways to push people to success. I had space for creative problem-solving.
I enjoy critiquing other people/fixing things
Least favorite aspects of past jobs:
Difficulty communicating with higher management. The whole hiring process was one of the more frustrating experiences I’ve had, and while I enjoyed the loose structure of the actual job, I would have appreciated more professionalism and communication when it came to things like paperwork and overall information about the role.
I disliked working in cold or wet outdoor environments (probably not applicable to working at a startup).
I disliked too much repetition (standing in the same place, saying the same things, doing the same actions).
I had my likes and dislikes, now it was time to find out if they matched up with marketing. I talked with three people, all of whom had very different experiences in the field. Since I had a personal conversation with each of them, I didn’t always ask them the exact same questions because a lot of the time they’d answer
Here’s what I learned:
Favorite aspects:
Advising someone and seeing it put into action: I didn’t ask about this directly, but it seems as though aside from a little collaboration between people I wouldn’t get to actually teach or advise anyone
Loose structure and the ability to move around: A lot of the people I talked to had more than one job, and didn’t really have set roles. Some of them weren’t even related to marketing much. Not only did there seem to be a loose structure within the roles, but the different people I talked to had quite different marketing responsibilities. Some were a team of one, going in and learning through trial and error, and some were a part of small teams.
One person I talked to, Evan White, said: “I think marketing
Connections, groups, and collaborations: I’m learning connections overall are important. The people I talked to worked in very small groups, depending on the size of their company. One person I talked to was the only one on the marketing team in a three-person company. Others had a small team they could bounce ideas off of. Since it’s a start-up, there are usually smaller groups, which I think I’d do better in.
Push people to success: This is another one I didn’t ask directly, but I think it depends on the company and how big the team is. Marketing itself doesn’t seem to have the one-on-one dynamic I’m used to having when it comes to pushing people to success, but I’m sure that would come in if I was part of a collaborative team. At the very least, I’ll still be pushing towards success, but the company will take the place of people.
Creative problem-solving: This one seemed to have the most resounding ‘yes’ response. The word “creative” was used a lot, even if I wasn’t necessarily bringing it up.
Another marketing professional I talked to, Madison Hull said: “Absolutely! it takes a lot of out-of-the-box thinking and putting yourself in the eyes of the customer. Understanding what works and if it doesn’t work, why didn’t it work & figuring out that you could do differently to push them through the funnel.”
Least favorite aspects of past jobs:
Difficulty communicating: I didn’t ask too many negative questions in order to keep conversations short, but from what I heard from the three different people I talked to there was a lot of communication. Madison said she primarily collaborated with the CEO (in a company of three). While I’m sure this varies from company to company, I also think start-ups require a lot of communication.
Too much repetition: I did ask Evan about this. He’d told me marketing was about 75% analytical and 25% creative, and I was concerned that might get a bit repetitive. He assured me he had plenty of tasks to switch between and always had a new challenge to take on.
All things considered, I still think marketing is probably a good fit. That doesn’t mean I won’t branch out, or that I’m not open to other roles, but I’m not too worried. The only way to know for sure is to jump in.