Not so normal Marketing route - advice please!!!
[#permalink]
07 Sep 2010, 10:02
Hi all,
Just wondering could I get a few opinions on this. I did my UG business degree in Marketing and loved it. However, I was much more interested in services marketing than CPG. I had a great finance lecturer and learned a lot from him about how marketers could be used in the investment world. Financial services marketing in particular was the area I had passion for. Unfortunately, upon graduation, the vast majority of the recruiting on campus was for CPG. There was virtually no hedge funds, mutual funds or private equity funds hiring graduate marketers from an UG.
I took a rather indirect route towards getting into a financial services marketing role. A route that would take 3-4 years and was quite chancey! I began work as a hedge fund accountant to get a grounding in fund operations. I also learned a lot about the industry and completed a relevant finance designation. I needed to understand the industry and its products very well before I could even begin transitioning to marketing. An MBA has always been a part of my plan to make the full transition to the marketing side. I've reached that juncture now.
The MBAs i'm looking at have good marketing courses but the vast majority are concentrated on grooming students for positions with CPGs. I have a decent quantitative background (which is NB for every aspect of working with funds etc) but when looking for work, would these well known 'marketing' schools be able to help me out a fraction as much as they can help the CPG crowd? Should the schools I apply to have a better finance reputation than marketing? Is the schools alumni in finance more important than their alumni in marketing? I've talked to two people in the careers i'm looking at and they became marketers through evolving roles. They were initially quant focused analyst types. It's all difficult to figure out!
One way of looking at it is that it will be more difficult to network into a good position because it's a lesser taken route. Another way, is that I would have less competition from my marketing peers who would be looking more into CPG.
If there's anyone with any relevant experience could I get your thoughts!? It's much appreciated.