Since I have some first-hand experience in this area, I thought I’d share. If this should go somewhere else, just let me know.

In my experience, the world of Online Advertising tends to have entry-level openings that can give people ground level experience, and from there, career acceleration can happen quite fast. The work in online advertising generally involves data analysis, and trend forecasting.

I, for one, started out at Google working on AdWords campaigns. My Journalism degree helped me land that position. They wanted to hire people who could write short blurbs to get a point across, and who could quickly learn the rest. From there, after a short deviation, I wound up at Vibrant Media, where I was hired as a “keyword optimizer.” I am simplifying this, but in that role, I developed advertising keyword lists, and optimized them to hook in relevant content based ads. The company grew fast, and I was moved into the role of “knowledge engineer,” and as our team grew, “senior knowledge engineer.” In this role I continued to work on keyword lists, but also to get involved in ad trafficking, product development, and broader scoped projects. After this, I worked in a keyword taxonomy role which involved developing systems to match ads to the language in content.

In these positions, when we hired new team members, we generally looked for people who had an interest in language, strong skills in Excel, an understanding of database queries, a background in statistics was considered a good thing, the aptitude to scrape through huge amounts of data to find gems, the ability to detect trends, a high threshold for boredom (sometimes you are starting at excel and sorting it for hours on end), and an interest in technology. Job postings might have mentioned coursework in topics like data mining, or degrees in library studies with a focus in information management, but the reality is that there weren’t that many applicants qualified, so we were more interested in finding people who could be trained. This blog is exactly right when it says, “A window of opportunity cracks open when the perfect applicant is nonexistent or is in critically short supply.”

Sharon

I may be young, however, I’ve had over 4 years of successful sales experience in professional sales up until now. The first 3 years, as Sales Manager of an air duct/carpet cleaning business, a six month stint selling steak door-to-door, and over a year of being the top-grossing salesman at a new/used car dealership. I sell things. Needless to say, I moved out of my car sales consultant position and am driving the sales in my own store as General Manager at Gold Buyers of America.

I love influencing people – but I wanted to have more of an influence on the world than whether or not people bought a Chevy or a Kia.

Anyhow, pharmaceutical sales was where my minds eye fell upon. One problem: no degree.

I may just have to get my degree on the side, now, seeing as your article about the ascent to Regional Manager has definitely reinspired me.

Thank you.

Thanks for the feedback. The next one will come out soon. Is there an industry or occupation you want to suggest after I finish with social media?

Sharon