How Covid-19 Will Affect Marketers

It has been an interesting 3 months for all of us, and now with the civil unrest in the US, I know many of you are hopeful that at the end of all this we will all be better for it… At least that’s how I feel.

I wanted to share a bit of what I am expecting is to come specifically for marketing professionals from a head hunters viewpoint.

For marketers in particular, our journey is going to be unique, not only because marketing roles have often had to work harder than other departments to defend their value to the organization, but also because the tactical marketers often get prioritized when a company is in crisis mode, where as the strategic, long term brand building professionals get placed on pause or worse, let go.

That said, if there ever was a time that has shone a spotlight on the CMO, now would be it. The constant change that has faced Marketers over the past decade has made us some of the most agile and familiar to change employees. Hence we were the ones tapped to lead internal communications and change management towards remote working and employee engagement.

Each year I moderate a panel of CMOs, with this event pivoting online on June 10th. I wanted to bring CMOs from different categories who have all been impacted differently as industries were not universally affected. This will be a very interactive session that includes the CMOs of Hudson’s Bay, MLSE, Sunwing, Tangerine, and Well.ca. More details available here to register.

So what can we expect for Marketing Jobs?

In our experience, we are expecting a slow recovery over the next 12 months. We are also quite certain that a very large portion of roles will not be full time permanent (often referred to as an FTE). Many enterprise and global organizations will tap into macro finance protocols such as headcount, salary and hiring freezes to mitigate their risk.

This has been mirrored in previous recessions including 2008 and 2001, and we see that directly in our business as the ratio of direct hire flips completely to contract hiring. This is because our client’s are under resourced and unable to hire someone permanently.

Two typical responses are – A. send the work to the agency (at a hefty premium) OR B. bring in contract resources. Where a staffing /salary budget is lacking, a department head might be able to leverage their own marketing budget to cover the contractor costs.

Contract work is not something everyone has an appetite for, but now more than ever is a time for you to be open to it. We anticipate these roles will not only be junior and mid level roles, but will include Director and even VP levels.

You must get be active to be succesful on LinkedIn

That is why it is now imperative that you stand out on places like LinkedIn, which goes beyond just having a ‘complete profile’. You need to also be actively engaging with your peers there too.

If you are struggling with your own LinkedIn presence, check out my post for a referral to a LinkedIn Optimization expert.

I am truly optimistic about our future, we just need to lean on each other a little more for now.

Please reach out if you have any questions.

Best,

Craig Lund

Founder | President, Marketing Talent Inc.