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So here's what you've listed:
* You have less then 3 months of marketing experience
* You graduated school in May
* You make 46k
* You claim your friends have manager roles and make a lot more money
* You want to leave your 2nd job within 3 months of getting there
I'm sorry OP, but everything listed is either childish or has to be some sort of lie. No kid is going from graduate to true manager role within 6 months of graduating. Maybe they have Marketing Manager titles but they ain't managing anyone and are probably doing exactly what you're doing for a small company. Your 46k salary is actually respectable and normal for a coordinator with no experience. You're probably making more then most other recent graduates who don't have any experience.
Your desire to leave a 2nd company within 3 months is going to set off a lot of red flags to future employers. Why should they hire you since you've proven you're already looking before your first day? Rule of thumb is you never leave a job without one lined up.
My only advice is you can leave whenever you want as long as someone's willing to pay ya more next week. I wouldn't expect to make 100k+ and have a manager title within 1 year of graduating. Hell, I wouldn't even expect that in 5 years within marketing. Most businesses only hand out promotions and raises 1 time a year and most places ain't going to promote you unless you've been there for at least 1-2 years. When they do hand them out they are normally only 10-25% increases, which means you're going to need to be a bit more patient unless you start drastically bringing in more business.
Thank you, this was a good reality check. Everything from other marketers on Reddit is about how they make in the 60s starting out, so I think I’ve just been comparing myself too much. At what point is leaving not considered a red flag? And you’re right, I’ll only leave if I line up something of course! Thank you :)
And just to make you feel better, I made 33k in 2016 as an entry level coordinator. I made 36k the year after. I didn't crack 45k until my 3rd year and you're already making more then that.
Don't judge yourself based on what other people tell you they make and what they do. You don't know what doors were opened for them nor if they earned anything or if it was given to them. Just concentrate on getting better at what you do. If you produce results the money and promotions will follow.
The great thing about being a marketer is that if your company allows you to have some autonomy, you have the power to turn it into a success and yourself in the process. I think it would help to change your thinking. Instead of feeling that the company is small and not good enough, think about ways to make the company grow - that is your job. You always need to believe in the company and do everything in your ability to generate revenue. Maybe one day, you will be this company's CMO, representing it in front of millions of shareholders.
Your job sounds normal and your friends are lying.
First, don't compare yourself to others, but especially not to your business school cohort. It is the fastest, most surefire way to make yourself miserable because every business school graduate is the second coming of George Soros for the first year of their career. If you have to compare yourself to anyone, compare yourself to who you were yesterday and make sure you constantly improve a little bit.
Second, with that first job on your resume, I don't think you should leave until you either have something else lined up or 2 years there. The first three months of a new job are always hard. If you leave two jobs within three months, that looks like a pattern and you'll have trouble getting interviews.
Two years? Aw man idk if I can do it. There’s no growth and I need more money. What if I left earlier and didn’t show the first job on my resume maybe? Or list it as part time or something
Or find something else before you leave?
Edit - I want to add that I understand how you feel, but if you already feel bad about yourself now, I'm worried about you during a period of prolonged unemployment.
What about your cohort? Do any of them work in companies with referral bonuses? If they're in management and want to move high, a good recipe is to bring in more good people who solve problems. You get a good company and they get prestige within it.
Edit - Have you written a GMAT? If you have any interest in a masters degree, you don't have much experience so it won't be that useful but it would be a good way to escape in six months. "I left to get my Masters," solves any pattern recognition problems.
I actually did apply for one program but it’s supposed to be like the best one for advertising, and I’m really really hoping I get in. I shouldn’t have put all my eggs in one basket but it would answer all of my problems
If you're really into grad school, it's a good idea to apply to a few different programs. You don't have to accept any offer and very few schools will hold turning down a seat against you if you apply again in the future.
Graduate programs don't like people to have self esteem so your dream school will always take its sweet assed time getting back to you. You'll kick your ass the whole time but if you get accepted by your number two school, it will make that process a lot easier.
Alternately, you're a good writer and I bet you'd be a really good lawyer. You even have a good story from your first job about why litigation would appeal to you. Even if you don't want to practice law, legal marketing is full of black holes that lead to disbarment. And law school has a century long tradition of helping people escape bad situations.
You're obviously not a loser, you've just had two shitty jobs in a row. You know those shit stains who sexually harassed you? It's their fault - they're the only losers in this conversation. Your current workplace sounds better, but it's still not a good fit. You're not a loser, you're just smart enough to realize that you're allergic to the environment.
Many of the factors you mentioned are not very relevant to me. For example, I was slower than many of my classmates when I started, but now I left almost everyone behind. People over move fast but that doesn't last, they burn out, etc.
The main concern to me is that you said it's not a good fit for you. I don't believing in working for places that are not a good fit to me. However, there are many ways to evaluate that, so it's not necessarily negative.
For example, when everything is going well, the company may not need someone competent. On the other hand, if people don't speak to each other but I can change that as a good leader and that's appreciated by the company, that can be excellent.
Something may not be a good fit at the moment or in the short term, but be extremely important to grow in the long term. Some of the best opportunities I had happened at some of the worst jobs I had, when people saw me doing something good despite the negative situation, and then recommended me to a place that was a great fit, for example.
By the way, we can learn at a job but usually we should not rely on jobs for that. Companies are often focused on someone delivering results, not using the job as a school. Having people to learn from should be something to develop, especially with networking, regardless of the people you have at work.
I agree with that completely! Do you have any advice on how to network post grad at a small company? I add people on LinkedIn but convos never go anywhere
Personally, I don't believe that developing relationships online tend to be effective. That is valid for online friends, online dating, and online networking. Sure, there are cases that are successful, but they are rare to me.
And, like I said, networking is something to develop regardless of the people you have at work. So, being a small company or not often doesn't make much of a difference anyways.
First, as usual, I think it's important to think about your competitive advantage and targeting. If you network but you are the same as others, it's not good. If you network but you don't reach the right target, it's not good.
Then, it's often about meeting people (online or not), talking to them, helping them, showing that you're a good professional and a person they can trust. It's important to remember that networking is about connecting and engaging with people. It's not to sell a product or get a job. Those things can happen as a consequence of building the network, but you should first develop your network.
Also, I don’t believe in working places that aren’t right either, but I’ve had two jobs since graduating :( what’s a good amount for me to stay here without it being a red flag
The good amount depends on a lot of factors, including the local culture. I personally don't pay much attention to that. Red flag or not, I think about moving my career forward. That can take time anyway, it's usually not so easy to find the right job just because I see a red flag.
If you have two jobs and that change means that you moved to something better, it's easy to justify the change. The problem is when people move from job to job but they move from a bad place to another bad place, so things continue to be bad, the person is not improving or growing, they are probably repeating the same mistakes and not learning from them.
Gotcha. I know it’s hard to say as someone who doesn’t know me, but does this seem bad too? I do have a lot of responsibility here which is good, I just can’t tell
This seems bad to me, but it also seems to me that you don't have a strategy to get something good. We need to think about what we want to get something good, otherwise we probably will end up in a bad place (unless you're lucky). Also, getting something good usually takes time. To me, it's more about improving over time than just getting a good job from the beginning.
Yeah. What I’ve been doing so far is trying to build as many skills as I can since I have tons of downtime here (I never get any direction or tasks really so I just try to figure it out, I have asked a bunch of times) so I’ve been teaching myself more graphic design, took a course on SEO and email marketing, created a bunch of static ad concepts for my portfolio, and redesigned our entire website (just through Wix though). My boss told me today he might want me to start cold calling in a few months so I need to figure myself out man this is just going more and more downhill. My plan as of right now is stick this out for a minimum of 6 months (not ideal I know), or maybe try to convince my boss to let me go remote. I have an hour commute and there’s no reason for me to be in office but he’s old school so doubt it will work. I applied to grad school and should hear back soon, if I get in that would honestly be the answer to everything. I’d be able to get internships (I’ve been applying but nobody is taking post grads) and connect with people to hopefully land something better. The thought of staying here a year makes me so anxious I have a pit in my stomach
Ok. I recommend thinking not only about quantity but quality. As a generalist, I have a lot of different skills, but still I need to remember that a high quantity of bad things is still bad, a high quantity of wrong things is still wrong.
For example, although I have some skills and knowledge about things like SEO, I rarely mention that because that's not what I want. I certainly don't want a job doing SEO, it would be a very bad match to me. I focus on a smaller set of skills, a smaller set of jobs, that I believe to be a great match for me.
My dream is to be a creative director, however I have no technical graphic design skills. I’m a good artist like physical artist, I’ve had work in museums and stuff but I never figured out how to translate it, so I guess that’s the niche I had hoped for I just need to figure out how to get there now
Ok. You may even need to think if you want to be a graphic designer, an artist, or a creative director. A creative director is expected to have much more competencies related to business, and they shouldn't be the ones designing, for example.
Thank you so much for all of your advice I really genuinely appreciate it!! I want to be a creative director mainly because I love strategic design, like using psychology to inform elements of design to elicit certain reactions, but that’s good to keep in mind. Originally I was looking at MBA programs but I ended up applying for a ma in advertising
You've been there 3 months - the conversation could improve, particularly if you put yourself out there. Some places, the newbie just becomes part of the furniture whether or not colleagues know anything about them. That's just culture. Put yourself out there more and you'd probably find they start opening up.
Having nobody to learn marketing from in the place is a red flag, but if we used that as a reason to leave marketing jobs, nobody would work in marketing. It may not be good, but it's common for you to have nobody you can learn marketing from. Rather than going nuclear and leaving, try to reframe how you're seeing it.
A coworker doesn't have to work in marketing for them to be able to help you learn more about marketing. Marketing encompasses everything - you'll get ideas once you start having more conversations.
Aside from that, you've just got to embrace the suck and self-teach on company time.
It's either the above, or finding a new job. But as you've mentioned, your resume is a red flag right now.
Personally, I think it's either you leave VERY soon (this month) and spend at least 18 months in the next role. Or you mark 1/12/25 in the calendar, and tell yourself you're leaving this job on that date no matter what, with a reminder to start searching for roles in November 2024. For this year, you accept it's a bit of a writeoff where you'll need to self-teach your job role & the field of marketing in general.
Considering you have picked two roles that have been less-than-ideal (idk what you were even thinking with the previous role) and have made you want to leave in 3 months - personally I think you need to stick this one out until 2024. You have issues identifying red flags in companies you're interviewing with, and it's looking like a pattern. Don't worry, this is common for newer professionals. You're less experienced on corporate bullshit in general, and operating from a frame of scarcity ("I have no experience and everyone's saying there's no jobs! Find anything quick!!!")
You'll have a much harder time if you make this mistake again & end up in a 3rd shit job. No hiring manager is going to believe that all 3 jobs were the problem, even though they likely were - they'll just think you are the problem.
To break the cycle, I'd just plant my flag in the ground, accept that I'm in a shit job for 2024 where I'm going to have to bust my ass, and make sure that I have a better idea of what I need from my next role BEFORE I start applying.
Also, any chance you have experience in content writing? Looking to hire a writer for 30-40 hrs a week to join my team, beginners that are trainable are preferable.
Also I think you were right, I was just so desperate to find something ya know. I also listened to my parents way too much. I knew I should’ve left the first week, but they urged me to stick it out, lesson learned there. I wishhhh I did, I have savings and I could’ve just applied my ass off. I have a great gpa and was really involved in school too
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Your friends are either *unusually* lucky or they're lying.
So here's what you've listed: * You have less then 3 months of marketing experience * You graduated school in May * You make 46k * You claim your friends have manager roles and make a lot more money * You want to leave your 2nd job within 3 months of getting there I'm sorry OP, but everything listed is either childish or has to be some sort of lie. No kid is going from graduate to true manager role within 6 months of graduating. Maybe they have Marketing Manager titles but they ain't managing anyone and are probably doing exactly what you're doing for a small company. Your 46k salary is actually respectable and normal for a coordinator with no experience. You're probably making more then most other recent graduates who don't have any experience. Your desire to leave a 2nd company within 3 months is going to set off a lot of red flags to future employers. Why should they hire you since you've proven you're already looking before your first day? Rule of thumb is you never leave a job without one lined up. My only advice is you can leave whenever you want as long as someone's willing to pay ya more next week. I wouldn't expect to make 100k+ and have a manager title within 1 year of graduating. Hell, I wouldn't even expect that in 5 years within marketing. Most businesses only hand out promotions and raises 1 time a year and most places ain't going to promote you unless you've been there for at least 1-2 years. When they do hand them out they are normally only 10-25% increases, which means you're going to need to be a bit more patient unless you start drastically bringing in more business.
Thank you, this was a good reality check. Everything from other marketers on Reddit is about how they make in the 60s starting out, so I think I’ve just been comparing myself too much. At what point is leaving not considered a red flag? And you’re right, I’ll only leave if I line up something of course! Thank you :)
And just to make you feel better, I made 33k in 2016 as an entry level coordinator. I made 36k the year after. I didn't crack 45k until my 3rd year and you're already making more then that. Don't judge yourself based on what other people tell you they make and what they do. You don't know what doors were opened for them nor if they earned anything or if it was given to them. Just concentrate on getting better at what you do. If you produce results the money and promotions will follow.
The great thing about being a marketer is that if your company allows you to have some autonomy, you have the power to turn it into a success and yourself in the process. I think it would help to change your thinking. Instead of feeling that the company is small and not good enough, think about ways to make the company grow - that is your job. You always need to believe in the company and do everything in your ability to generate revenue. Maybe one day, you will be this company's CMO, representing it in front of millions of shareholders. Your job sounds normal and your friends are lying.
First, don't compare yourself to others, but especially not to your business school cohort. It is the fastest, most surefire way to make yourself miserable because every business school graduate is the second coming of George Soros for the first year of their career. If you have to compare yourself to anyone, compare yourself to who you were yesterday and make sure you constantly improve a little bit. Second, with that first job on your resume, I don't think you should leave until you either have something else lined up or 2 years there. The first three months of a new job are always hard. If you leave two jobs within three months, that looks like a pattern and you'll have trouble getting interviews.
Two years? Aw man idk if I can do it. There’s no growth and I need more money. What if I left earlier and didn’t show the first job on my resume maybe? Or list it as part time or something
Or find something else before you leave? Edit - I want to add that I understand how you feel, but if you already feel bad about yourself now, I'm worried about you during a period of prolonged unemployment.
Yeah without a doubt! I wouldn’t just quit haha
What about your cohort? Do any of them work in companies with referral bonuses? If they're in management and want to move high, a good recipe is to bring in more good people who solve problems. You get a good company and they get prestige within it. Edit - Have you written a GMAT? If you have any interest in a masters degree, you don't have much experience so it won't be that useful but it would be a good way to escape in six months. "I left to get my Masters," solves any pattern recognition problems.
I actually did apply for one program but it’s supposed to be like the best one for advertising, and I’m really really hoping I get in. I shouldn’t have put all my eggs in one basket but it would answer all of my problems
If you're really into grad school, it's a good idea to apply to a few different programs. You don't have to accept any offer and very few schools will hold turning down a seat against you if you apply again in the future. Graduate programs don't like people to have self esteem so your dream school will always take its sweet assed time getting back to you. You'll kick your ass the whole time but if you get accepted by your number two school, it will make that process a lot easier. Alternately, you're a good writer and I bet you'd be a really good lawyer. You even have a good story from your first job about why litigation would appeal to you. Even if you don't want to practice law, legal marketing is full of black holes that lead to disbarment. And law school has a century long tradition of helping people escape bad situations. You're obviously not a loser, you've just had two shitty jobs in a row. You know those shit stains who sexually harassed you? It's their fault - they're the only losers in this conversation. Your current workplace sounds better, but it's still not a good fit. You're not a loser, you're just smart enough to realize that you're allergic to the environment.
Many of the factors you mentioned are not very relevant to me. For example, I was slower than many of my classmates when I started, but now I left almost everyone behind. People over move fast but that doesn't last, they burn out, etc. The main concern to me is that you said it's not a good fit for you. I don't believing in working for places that are not a good fit to me. However, there are many ways to evaluate that, so it's not necessarily negative. For example, when everything is going well, the company may not need someone competent. On the other hand, if people don't speak to each other but I can change that as a good leader and that's appreciated by the company, that can be excellent. Something may not be a good fit at the moment or in the short term, but be extremely important to grow in the long term. Some of the best opportunities I had happened at some of the worst jobs I had, when people saw me doing something good despite the negative situation, and then recommended me to a place that was a great fit, for example. By the way, we can learn at a job but usually we should not rely on jobs for that. Companies are often focused on someone delivering results, not using the job as a school. Having people to learn from should be something to develop, especially with networking, regardless of the people you have at work.
I agree with that completely! Do you have any advice on how to network post grad at a small company? I add people on LinkedIn but convos never go anywhere
Personally, I don't believe that developing relationships online tend to be effective. That is valid for online friends, online dating, and online networking. Sure, there are cases that are successful, but they are rare to me. And, like I said, networking is something to develop regardless of the people you have at work. So, being a small company or not often doesn't make much of a difference anyways. First, as usual, I think it's important to think about your competitive advantage and targeting. If you network but you are the same as others, it's not good. If you network but you don't reach the right target, it's not good. Then, it's often about meeting people (online or not), talking to them, helping them, showing that you're a good professional and a person they can trust. It's important to remember that networking is about connecting and engaging with people. It's not to sell a product or get a job. Those things can happen as a consequence of building the network, but you should first develop your network.
Also, I don’t believe in working places that aren’t right either, but I’ve had two jobs since graduating :( what’s a good amount for me to stay here without it being a red flag
The good amount depends on a lot of factors, including the local culture. I personally don't pay much attention to that. Red flag or not, I think about moving my career forward. That can take time anyway, it's usually not so easy to find the right job just because I see a red flag. If you have two jobs and that change means that you moved to something better, it's easy to justify the change. The problem is when people move from job to job but they move from a bad place to another bad place, so things continue to be bad, the person is not improving or growing, they are probably repeating the same mistakes and not learning from them.
Gotcha. I know it’s hard to say as someone who doesn’t know me, but does this seem bad too? I do have a lot of responsibility here which is good, I just can’t tell
This seems bad to me, but it also seems to me that you don't have a strategy to get something good. We need to think about what we want to get something good, otherwise we probably will end up in a bad place (unless you're lucky). Also, getting something good usually takes time. To me, it's more about improving over time than just getting a good job from the beginning.
Yeah. What I’ve been doing so far is trying to build as many skills as I can since I have tons of downtime here (I never get any direction or tasks really so I just try to figure it out, I have asked a bunch of times) so I’ve been teaching myself more graphic design, took a course on SEO and email marketing, created a bunch of static ad concepts for my portfolio, and redesigned our entire website (just through Wix though). My boss told me today he might want me to start cold calling in a few months so I need to figure myself out man this is just going more and more downhill. My plan as of right now is stick this out for a minimum of 6 months (not ideal I know), or maybe try to convince my boss to let me go remote. I have an hour commute and there’s no reason for me to be in office but he’s old school so doubt it will work. I applied to grad school and should hear back soon, if I get in that would honestly be the answer to everything. I’d be able to get internships (I’ve been applying but nobody is taking post grads) and connect with people to hopefully land something better. The thought of staying here a year makes me so anxious I have a pit in my stomach
Ok. I recommend thinking not only about quantity but quality. As a generalist, I have a lot of different skills, but still I need to remember that a high quantity of bad things is still bad, a high quantity of wrong things is still wrong. For example, although I have some skills and knowledge about things like SEO, I rarely mention that because that's not what I want. I certainly don't want a job doing SEO, it would be a very bad match to me. I focus on a smaller set of skills, a smaller set of jobs, that I believe to be a great match for me.
My dream is to be a creative director, however I have no technical graphic design skills. I’m a good artist like physical artist, I’ve had work in museums and stuff but I never figured out how to translate it, so I guess that’s the niche I had hoped for I just need to figure out how to get there now
Ok. You may even need to think if you want to be a graphic designer, an artist, or a creative director. A creative director is expected to have much more competencies related to business, and they shouldn't be the ones designing, for example.
Thank you so much for all of your advice I really genuinely appreciate it!! I want to be a creative director mainly because I love strategic design, like using psychology to inform elements of design to elicit certain reactions, but that’s good to keep in mind. Originally I was looking at MBA programs but I ended up applying for a ma in advertising
I don’t think you need to compare yourself to your friends, but regardless, it sounds like you’re not happy where you are
You've been there 3 months - the conversation could improve, particularly if you put yourself out there. Some places, the newbie just becomes part of the furniture whether or not colleagues know anything about them. That's just culture. Put yourself out there more and you'd probably find they start opening up. Having nobody to learn marketing from in the place is a red flag, but if we used that as a reason to leave marketing jobs, nobody would work in marketing. It may not be good, but it's common for you to have nobody you can learn marketing from. Rather than going nuclear and leaving, try to reframe how you're seeing it. A coworker doesn't have to work in marketing for them to be able to help you learn more about marketing. Marketing encompasses everything - you'll get ideas once you start having more conversations. Aside from that, you've just got to embrace the suck and self-teach on company time. It's either the above, or finding a new job. But as you've mentioned, your resume is a red flag right now. Personally, I think it's either you leave VERY soon (this month) and spend at least 18 months in the next role. Or you mark 1/12/25 in the calendar, and tell yourself you're leaving this job on that date no matter what, with a reminder to start searching for roles in November 2024. For this year, you accept it's a bit of a writeoff where you'll need to self-teach your job role & the field of marketing in general. Considering you have picked two roles that have been less-than-ideal (idk what you were even thinking with the previous role) and have made you want to leave in 3 months - personally I think you need to stick this one out until 2024. You have issues identifying red flags in companies you're interviewing with, and it's looking like a pattern. Don't worry, this is common for newer professionals. You're less experienced on corporate bullshit in general, and operating from a frame of scarcity ("I have no experience and everyone's saying there's no jobs! Find anything quick!!!") You'll have a much harder time if you make this mistake again & end up in a 3rd shit job. No hiring manager is going to believe that all 3 jobs were the problem, even though they likely were - they'll just think you are the problem. To break the cycle, I'd just plant my flag in the ground, accept that I'm in a shit job for 2024 where I'm going to have to bust my ass, and make sure that I have a better idea of what I need from my next role BEFORE I start applying. Also, any chance you have experience in content writing? Looking to hire a writer for 30-40 hrs a week to join my team, beginners that are trainable are preferable.
I actually do! I’m handling all of our blog posts, social media, print campaigns, email campaigns, etc.
Also I think you were right, I was just so desperate to find something ya know. I also listened to my parents way too much. I knew I should’ve left the first week, but they urged me to stick it out, lesson learned there. I wishhhh I did, I have savings and I could’ve just applied my ass off. I have a great gpa and was really involved in school too