The only type of digital marketers that do get hired to work in-house for an organization are often SEO experts and social media marketers. The other roles often get outsourced to digital marketing agencies or even in any one of those freelancing websites.
However, the fact that is often SEO and social media marketers that do get hired often, should not dampen your spirit. If you have other skills such as web design, graphics design, copywriting, and content marketing, among others, you are better off working as an agency or freelancing online. You will still make a good living, if not more than those hired in-house.
What to Include in a Resume
This article is going to explore the key things that ought to be in the resume of someone applying for a digital marketing job. They are as follows:
- Have a Catchy Header
When a job vacancy has been put out by an organization, especially an organization, many deem as a good employer. There will be hundreds of application letters coming into the HR department. As you can imagine, the HR manager will be reading through so many letters that at some point, they skim through them.
Do yourself a favor and make your resume sticky. So sticky that it will hang around the HR’s hands and eyes for longer than the average resume and cover letter. While the header of a typical cover letter and resume are usually your name and contact details, there are a few tricks to making the headline stands out.
That includes starting your name with one or two certifications you have earned over the years. Make sure it is for something you are genuinely qualified for; you don’t necessarily need to have extensive experience.
Somewhere within your resume, be sure to add a link to your professional websites, social media accounts, and portfolio. Here is one place a vibrant LinkedIn profile could come to your rescue. Other sites you could include are Reddit and Quora and any other websites that could vouch for your digital marketing skills.
Image Credit: EnHanCV.com
2. Write a Clear, Concise, and Focused Summary
In the spirit of making your resume a lot more sticky in the hands of an HR manager going through hundreds of other applications. It is a good idea to include a summary of yourself rather than a summary of your digital marketing skills.
The summary serves two purposes; summarizes your digital marketing skills while at the same time showcasing your writing skills. The summary ought to be concise and focused on showing you are the preferred candidate for the given role. Below are screenshots of what a summary should look like:
Image Credit: EnHanCV.com
As you can see from the two examples above, the first one cuts straight to the point. While the second one is mered with vagueness and beating about the bush, ‘ain’t no one got time for that!’ Don’t forget, it is a summary, so summarize, but be relevant, clear, and concise.
Also, let the summary serve to show your skills for the advertised job positions. HR managers want to read that on your resume; have it clearly demonstrated.
3. Detailed Work Experience Showcasing Results
Most people know that they should include their work experience in their resume when applying for a job. However, only a handful of applicants have mastered the art of using their work experience to demonstrate their capacity to handle a job.
It is not enough to say you worked at organizations A, B, and C. Take the extra initiative of telling you accomplished X, Y, and Z while in organizations A, B, and C, respectively. Doing so goes a long way in creating the impression that you are a goal setter and an achiever, someone the organization would not want to pass up.
Have a look at the following two screenshots; one more detailed and one for lack of better words looking quite generic.
Image Credit: EnHanCV.com
Taking a look at both the first and second write-ups for job experience. You can agree, the first one is stickier to the eyes of the reader than the second one, which is almost too generic. The first one shows the initiative to demonstrate your capability to meet set targets, while also demonstrating your skills quite clearly.
4. How to Demonstrate Experience When You Have Little to no Formal Experience?
The biggest fear most job applicants have when applying for a job is not that they may not be qualified, but they may not have the desired level of experience. Indeed, most job
vacancy announcements often state a couple of years’ worth of experience as a requirement.
That can be a headache, especially for newbies in the industry, who perhaps just recently graduated from their digital marketing courses. However, we have stated numerous times in the past articles that the beauty of digital marketing is that you can start right where you are and build up a portfolio.
That means taking the initiative to set up a blog site, a YouTube channel, promoting a friend’s business for free, volunteering, and taking internship positions in digital marketing.
So when it comes to the part of including your working experience as a digital marketer in your resume. You can cite where you have volunteered, did your intern, and your personal projects showcasing your marketing skills, among other individual initiatives.
Remember, it is not necessary that you be formally employed for you to gain some experience. As long as you can demonstrate success in the endeavors you did on your initiatives, which will go a long way in showing to the HR you have some experience for the job advertised.
5. What to Fill in the Education Section?
Do you even need to include the education section at all in the digital marketing resume? Well, yes, as it is just as professional as any other profession! While it certainly pays well, seasoned digital marketers take home on average a few dollars extra compared to the average worker in America. We have established that fact in our previous postings.
If you went to college or university to undertake a digital marketing course, then certainly including that in your resume will serve to boost your candidature. However, if you have never stepped into a class to undertake any course in digital marketing, you indeed must have taken those online tutorials and at the end of it got certified for completing the course.
Don’t shy away from showing those certifications under the education section. In the words of Justin Emig from Web Talent Marketing, a digital marketing agency, “Certifications are the new degree.” Yes, they are just as good a proof for education, as any university or college certification. Be sure to include such certification under the education section; don’t shy away because it is not a degree.
6. What Skills Should You Include; All You Have or Just the Relevant?
The fact that most digital marketing skills can be obtained online; away from classes. Odds are the typical candidate for a specific digital marketing role, will also have skills for other roles. The most common skills being as follows:
| Data Analysis | Paid Ads | SEO |
| CMS | Social Media | Communication (Written and Spoken) |
| Mobile Marketing | Strategic Planning | Creativity |
| Crisis Management | Writing | Design |
The less popular skills are as follows:
| HTML/CSS/JS | SEMrush | Moz |
| Google Analytics | Facebook Ads | LinkedIn Ads |
| Email Marketing (on tools like Mailchimp) | Photoshop | Zapier |
| Buffer | Google Tag Manager | Hootsuite |
Looking at the list above, we can say there are a plethora of skills one can get in digital marketing. So when you are applying for a position, should you list all your skills?
The answer is no, but you can list just (all) the skills related to the given position. Don’t include skills not associated with the work at hand. Doing so will make you come off as a jack of all trade and a master of none. That will work to your disadvantage, as the employer will think you lack depth in the specific skill needed to execute the job.
What to Include in Your Cover Letter
So far, we have been looking at what should be in your resume when applying for a digital marketing position. However, resumes go accompanied by a cover letter, and we cannot afford to ignore it. As it is the first letter, the HR will read before getting to the resume.
In this section, let us dig into what ought to be in a cover letter, and make the foreplay so charming the HR personnel will be eager to open the resume as well.
7. How Long Should the Cover Letter Be?
Hey, you are not writing an encyclopedia here, and the HR personnel does not have the time to read page after page. They have other letters from other applicants, not to mention other tasks in the organizations to handle.
The ideal cover letter should not be more than one page. On that one page, you should introduce yourself, mention the job you are applying for, and briefly describe the skills you possess that make you the right candidate for the job.
Finish the cover letter with a call to action, which is a subtle request to the HR personnel to open the resume attached to the cover letter. Keep in mind your grammar, tenses, and vocabulary while writing the cover letter as they will show your creativity, thought process, and ability to communicate in writing.
8. Tailor the Cover Letter for the Specific Job Applications
In your quest to secure a job as fast as possible, or out of the frustration of going jobless month after month, even a couple of years. You will find yourself applying to tens of jobs per day.
It is very tempting to use the same cover letter and only to change the name of the organization and job title. Then attach your resume and sending out your application to as many of the advertised vacancies as possible.
Well, that might be the reason you will go for more months and even years before landing a job. Collective wisdom dictates that the cover letter ought to be tailor-made for each specific job. HR managers have the experience and training to see through generic cover letters, and to them, that comes off as someone who did not put their time and energy to learn about the organization.
You are better off sending a few job applications on a given day, but doing thorough research on the job advertised and the organization. Then create a tailor-made cover letter for the specific job application; do not use the same cover letter for another job application unless you are drawing inspiration from it.
9. If Possible Know the Person, You Will Be Addressing
We have mentioned the need to run some research into the organization whose job you are applying. In your cover letter, it will serve you well not to use phrases like, ‘To whom it may concern.’
If possible, find out the HR manager who will be handling the application reviews. Then address them personally. Something along the line, ‘To Mr. John Doe’ or ‘To Mrs. Jane Doe.’ Just by doing so, you will make your application stand out above the rest in the mind of the HR manager.
Though that may not be enough – on its own – to secure a job, it will serve the purpose of buttering up the HR manager to be receptive to your candidacy.
10. Speak the Language
There is technical jargon for every industry. If you are applying for an SEO job, be sure to drop in some technical jargon someone in that industry would typically use. That shows you are a professional who knows their craft.
Wrapping up
There is a lot that goes into making a successful job candidacy, and we are pretty confident the above are some of those things one ought to do. Of course, the above-mentioned is a more generic approach, and you should endeavor to do thorough research for the specific job you are applying.
Article provided by, The Digital Marketing Recruiter – a recruiting firm focused exclusively on filling digital marketing positions throughout the USA
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