CBD Resource : The Changing Marketing Jobs Landscape

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of four blog posts that explores our new report, The Changing Marketing Jobs Landscape. This post is co-authored by Lisa Sy. Look for our second post next Tuesday, June 8, which examines top marketing jobs and the skills B2B marketers now need to survive and thrive.

I wonder how a marketer from the 1980s or earlier would react if they were thrust into this modern business landscape. It would probably be a jarring experience on a similar level. “I saw a computer once and it was about the size of a school bus. Now everyone carries one in their pocket!”

To get a clear read on the marketing landscape and its evolving nature in modern times, it can be helpful to analyze hiring and job listing trends to understand how the function is changing and which skills are rising in demand. At LinkedIn, we have unique insight into this data, and our recent deep dive uncovered some nuggets that shine an encouraging light on the short-term and long-term future of the profession. We’ve put together an infographic to show how the marketing industry has fared during the pandemic.

How the Marketing Function Is Changing in a Reshaped Business Landscape

Rising demand, directional growth, and increasing flexibility: these are the dominant trends standing out from recent hiring trends in marketing. (Note: This information is sourced from LinkedIn internal data – Based on total NAMER jobs in the Marketing function listed on LinkedIn from 30 March 2020 to 29 Sept 2020 compared to 30 Sept 2020 to 30 March 2021.)

Marketers are in greater demand than ever

Disruptive events, like a pandemic and economic recessions, often take a negative toll on hiring demand, but marketing has seen the opposite impact. Businesses are recognizing a need to innovate and differentiate in the way they reach potential customers and are looking to their marketing departments to help drive that innovation. On LinkedIn, we’ve seen a 63% increase in marketing jobs over the past six months. In total, more than 380,000 marketing job listings were posted over the past year. Other research backs up this trend. According to The CMO Survey’s annual report, about 72% of marketers reported that the importance of marketing in their companies increased during the last year.

Catchafire, a virtual volunteer-matching service, is one example of a company that’s been hiring heavily for marketing roles, and it stands to reason that similar purpose-driven organizations will continue driving growth. Taproot Foundation, Petco and PwC are other companies near the top in terms of hiring activity for marketing.

Arts, retail, and education lead the way

Unsurprisingly, we found that generally recession-proof and non-cyclical industries have been the least affected in terms of hiring slowdown. These industries saw the most positive change in share of job listings over the past six months:

Art
Retail
Education
Corporate Services
Software & IT Services
Legal
Design
Media & Communications

Flexibility is a fixture on both sides of the hiring process

On the one hand, employers are clearly seeking more flexibility in terms of staffing solutions. Over the past six months, we saw a 24.5% increase in internship roles and a 15.0% increase in contractor roles for marketing.

On the other hand, employers are also offering more flexibility to the people they hire (which, in turn, gives these companies more flexibility in hiring). The past year saw 17,000 remote marketing job postings, highlighting the fundamental evolution of work.

This evolution stands to be a game-changer. The vastly widened hiring pooland lowered barriers to entry are good news for marketing and sales departments that want to increase the diversity of their talent.

A Bright and Bold Future for Marketers

Companies are turning to marketing to lead them into a strange new world, and our profession now has a historic opportunity to demonstrate its value and impact in bold new ways.

The future of the marketing function is flexible, optimistic, and ever-changing. We’re eager to venture into it alongside you.

Check out the full infographic to see job trends and subscribe to the LinkedIn Marketing Blog to keep your finger on the pulse of this ever-changing discipline.