[First Last Name]
Business [Number]
[Date Month Year]
Career Target
My primary job target is that of a Marketing Manager. It is primarily responsible in the planning and execution of the most effective approach at promoting company products, service, or brand (National Career Service n. p.). This marketing plan should involve all marketing activities on a campaign. Employers are most likely interested in at least three years of skills, experience, and industry knowledge at the marketing executive level more than formal academic learnings. It is expected that good marketing knowledge and management skills are already in place before receiving a consideration to the job.
Description of Requirements
Tools and Technology Requirements: Beyond basic knowledge and skills in using desktop and portable computers, the Marketing Manager must be familiar and comfortable with at the basic and essential software commonly used in marketing development, such as analytical software (e.g. Minitab, Nedstat Sitestat, The Raiser’s Edge, QAD Marketing Automation, Sage SalesLogix, Salesforce CRM, etc.), database interface and query software (e.g. ClearEDGE, Fast Tract Systems, Microsoft Access, etc.), graphics or photo imaging software (e.g. Adobe Fireworks, Adobe Flash, Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Visio), and web development software (e.g. Drupal, Extensible Hyper Text Markup Language XHTML, JavaScript, etc.).
Knowledge Requirements: A bachelor’s degree knowledge in marketing or business is preferable but not required (some companies provide on-the-job training for hires without marketing-related education) (Hart Research Associates 2) with special focus or exposure in Sales and Marketing, particularly marketing strategy and tactics, product demonstration, and sales technique and control systems; and Administration and Management, primarily strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership skills, production methods, and people-resource coordination (National Career Service n. p.). It also requires knowledge in Customer and Personal Services, including customer needs assessment, high quality service standards, and customer satisfaction evaluation.
Skills Requirements: The skills necessary include Active Learning, which is essentially the capacity to continue new learning and preferred by 90 percent of employers over undergraduate major (Hart Research Associates 2), include such skills as problem solving and critical decision making as a means to effectively resolve situational challenges and issues and effectively sell ideas (National Career Service n. p.); Active Listening, particularly the ability to provide full attention and ask appropriate questions as a means to communicate in English language with excellence and drive, motivate, and initiate subordinates and stakeholders to take effective action; and Critical Thinking, which is the capacity to distinguish the strengths and weaknesses of the alternative approaches to solutions and 93 percent of employers prefer over the undergraduate major (Hart Research Associates 2), includes such skill as logical reasoning, problem mapping, and quantitative analysis as a means to gain a good business sense.
Ability Requirements: A Marketing Manager must be an excellent communicator. Excellence in communication requires excellence in oral comprehension, which demands an ability to listen and understand spoken information and ideas, and expression, which is needed in effectively communicating information and ideas, as well as written comprehension and expression, both of which functions similarly with oral communication, but in written forms. It is valued by 93 percent of employers over an undergraduate major (Hart Research Associates 2). Deductive Reasoning, the ability to apply general rules on specific problems to produce effective approaches to solutions, is also essential in making sense of market challenges, particularly the ability to apply general rules to specific problems to devise effective solutions. More than 90 percent of employers prefer it over an undergraduate major.
Current Skill Inventory
Computer Interaction: One of my most strong hobbies involved long periods of interactions with computers and software, particularly game software.
Listening Skills: One of my strongest hobbies is reading. Reading develops my listening ability as I read through books written and ideas communicated by authors. It did so because listening and reading both involve comprehension, evaluation, and interpretation (Duker 321).
Mathematical Skills: In a Mathematics Olympiad in China, I won the first prize.
Service Skills: My 40 hours of community service in the United States in 2013 taught me the value of selflessly serving other people, which can be transferrable to serving selflessly the customers.
Leadership Skills: I believe that my honesty, loyalty, humor, humility, and being hardworking can help me function as an effective leader and manager of my co-employees in a marketing company or department. I believe I have the potential of great leaders, which Hossain (19-21) described as honest, loyal, humble, humorous, and hardworking.
Gaps Summary
I admitted have partial and complete gaps between what I have now and what I need to be before or upon graduation.
Partial Gaps: I have partial gaps in my active listening skills. Although, I have developed my listening skills through reading, reading cannot provide the necessary condition in which I can practice active listening. Active listening can only develop in my interactions with other people wherein I can focus my attention on the messages they communicate to me and get actively involved in the interaction. I also have partial gaps in my leadership skills. Although I have the fundamental values necessary in the development of a great leader, I still need more experiences in leading others so as to develop my leadership skills.
Moreover, I have partial gaps in my Computer Interaction Skills. Although I have already exhibited a strong quality in computer use, this knowledge and skill remained irrelevant to the specific requirements of functioning as a Marketing Manager. I still need to develop specific knowledge and skills in using analytical, data interface and query, graphics or photo imaging, and web development software as earlier detailed. Finally, I have partial gaps in Customer and Personal Services. Although I have experienced serving the community for 40 hours, I need more time, counted in months, handling customer and personal services issues to fully fill these gaps.
Full Gaps: Practically I have full gaps in most of the requirements in the Marketing Manager career, namely in sales and marketing, administration and management, active learning, critical thinking, communication excellence, and deductive reasoning.
Developmental Plan
Developmental Plan for My Partial Gaps
Active Listening Skills: I will develop my active listening skills through purposeful and consistent interaction with at least two persons every day for six months during which I will practice active listening and interaction for 20 minutes for each person. To monitor my progress, I will create a log book wherein I will record my objective self-evaluation on the manner I exercise active listening. I believe six months of daily consistent exercise of active listening will be adequate to establish these skills permanently.
Leadership Skills: I can practice my leadership skills in school and at the community where I served before. In school, I will take every opportunity to take a leadership role, primarily or secondarily, in my class groups and in school clubs where I am currently active. My aim is to practice every day if feasible and for the rest of the academic period. In the community, I will volunteer for six months twice every week and there volunteer to lead in minor (or better important) projects or activities as my precondition for volunteering.
Customer and Personal Services: I can also practice my customer and personal services skill in the community I will practice my leadership skills. This communitarian context will immerse me into real-world demand or need for good personal services. After six months in the community, I will volunteer, if not find temporary employment, in a customer-oriented company with opportunities for exposure into marketing and sales activities. I plan to stay in this company until I finish my undergraduate major and decide whether or not I stay or find another company to work with.
Computer Interaction Skills with Marketing Relevant Software: I can only self-train myself in developing this skill. I will purchase analytical software (e.g. Minitab, Nedstat Sitestat, The Raiser’s Edge, QAD Marketing Automation, Sage SalesLogix, Salesforce CRM, etc.), database interface and query software (e.g. ClearEDGE, Fast Tract Systems, Microsoft Access, etc.), graphics or photo imaging software (e.g. Adobe Fireworks, Adobe Flash, Adobe Photoshop, Microsoft Visio), and web development software (e.g. Drupal, Extensible Hyper Text Markup Language XHTML, JavaScript, etc.) one at a time and study its use one at a time. However, I will check first, which software to prioritize based on cost and common use in marketing companies. This means I will first canvass their prices online and visit marketing companies within the state (the nearer its location from school the better) to ascertain the marketing software they are using. I will master at least two software from each category (e.g. analytics, database, graphics, and web development) until I graduate.
Developmental Plan for My Full Gaps
Sales and Marketing: I will undertake my sales and marketing training and exposure in my second year in the undergraduate program as a volunteer, but more preferably as a temporary employee as mentioned in 1.3. Although I will be depending on the actual area I will be assigned, I will ensure my exposure in various aspects of sales and marketing in the company.
Administration and Management: This requirement cannot be fully addressed while working in sales and marketing functions. However, any department, including sales and marketing, has its own share of administrative and management (or at least supervisory) functions. This is particularly available to me during my earlier years in the company because, as a new employee, I will be expected to perform office functions, which are essentially administrative in nature. I can practice my management skills earlier during my six-month volunteer works in the community. My management and leadership experiences from the community will help me take on supervisory functions.
Active Learning Skills: I will have ample opportunities to practice active learning in the community and in the sales and marketing company where I will be working as a temporary. I will monitor the development of these skills weekly and devise ways to improve it better and better each day. After mastering these skills, I will simply transition from purposefully seeking to develop it in the company to actually using it as a permanent part of my skills repertoire.
Critical Thinking and Deductive Reasoning Skills: I can develop these skills primarily in school by engaging purposefully and passionately in empirical research when required in each class. A research project provides the best training to develop my critical thinking and deductive reasoning capabilities from the inherent demand of research. This will be full-course developmental process.
Works Cited
Duker, Sam. “Listening and Reading.” The Elementary School Journal Mar. 1965: 321-329.
PDF file.
Hart Research Associates. It Takes More than a Major: Employer Priorities for College
Learning and Student Success. Washington, DC: Hart Research Associates, 2013. Print.
Hossain, Khandakar Akhter. “Leadership Qualities for 21st Century Leaders”. Pearl Journal of
Management, Social Science and Humanities Apr. 2015, 1(1): 18-29. PDF file.
National Career Service. “Job Profiles: Marketing Manager”. Web. 9 Mar. 2016.
https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/advice/planning/jobprofiles/Pages/Marketingmanager.aspx.
