This is a blog for job seekers. It comes from a place of love. We want to help you.
We’ve been hiring a bit lately. And you know what we’ve learned? Finding passionate people in the digital media space is easy. Finding talented people? Less so.
More and more, we’re seeing resumes submitted by eager people touting their love for the digital landscape, or something tangential to it. Unfortunately, many of them lack the basic skills required to be successful in the industry.
Three Reasons Why Applicants Are Not Cutting the Mustard
There are a number of reasons for this lack of skill set. Boiling them all down to a single primary cause is too reductionist. But three reasons seem fair—let’s roll with that. This is, in our not-so-humble opinion, the recipe for the current talent drought in digital media:
- One Part Definitional Obscurity
Honestly, what does “digital media” even mean anymore? The definition of the term has been lost in the forest with so many trees in the way. - Two Parts Theory Over Practice
It is easy to explain the concepts of branding, marketing, and advertising in theory. Concepts are simple. Practically marrying these concepts together to achieve high-level performance is a different thing altogether. And it requires a special flavor of mindset. - Five Parts Letting Passions Take the Wheel
We see a lot of resumes. These days, being ardent, fervent, spirited (or any other synonym for passionate) about digital media has become the most touted explanation in the “reasons you should hire me” section of a good many resumes.
Mix these ingredients together, and you’re likely to end up exactly where you started—without a job. Probably without ever even getting an interview.
Must-Have Technical Skills for Digital Media Jobs
So, how can you get your foot in the door? You need understanding, practical know-how, and talent. All of these things can come from experience. Experience can come from actually doing the job, or training to do the job, either through a formal education, an internship, or both.
If you’re looking to get your foot in the digital media door, then you’ll need technical skills in order to be seriously considered. You will need to know how to…
- Use attribution models. Obviously.
- Reach audiences in different media platforms.
- Build media campaigns with business goals in sight.
- Make all types of media campaigns work synergistically.
- Leverage the tech platforms where media campaigns are built.
- Read your media campaign data so that it can improve over time.
- Communicate the “why” behind a media campaign that underperforms.
- Gather insights from your campaigns that inform other content and placements.
- Utilize Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager (and/or other tag management tools).
Passion is important, but it’s not enough to get a job. We want our doctors to love what they do, but we want them to know what they’re doing more, right?
Taking the steps to become technically proficient is much more important at the resume-writing stage. Once you get an interview, highlight your skills by talking about how passionate you are about X, Y, and Z. If you’re truly in love with digital media, the interviewer will know.
This advice goes for any job in any industry: Get the skills, grow your abilities, and feed the passion. Success will almost assuredly follow.
Need Some Direction?
If you have the passion but don’t know where to start, reach out to us. We would love to point you in the right direction to help you acquire the skills you need to master your digital media craft.
Are You Interested in a Digital Media Position at Mad Genius and Already Have the Aforementioned Skill Set?
We are hiring a Pay-Per-Click Specialist for our Digital Media team.