The Career Curve: October Edition
In this edition:
The 5 Positioning Gaps for Marketing Directors, VPs, and CMOs - FREE GUIDE
Market Update: Organizations are not pulling back on marketing leadership. They’re being selective about who sits in those roles
WHO’S WRITING YOUR STORY?
Twenty years of experience, and your resume still doesn’t fully capture it
A client came to me last month with a resume that listed every title he had held for twenty years. Director, Senior Director, VP. Each one accurate.
None of them told me what he had actually done.
That is common. Senior marketers spend years solving hard problems, and the record of that work quietly falls out of the resume, the LinkedIn profile, and the interview answers. What is left is a list of roles instead of a list of results.
Right now this matters more than usual. Director-level and above marketing hiring is up 17.3% year over year, but companies are selective.
They want marketers who can show revenue impact clearly, not just tenure. The experience is there. Your Story around it is often the part that has gone stale.
I see this pattern often enough that I put it into a short guide. It names five specific ways this shows up.
If any of those sound familiar, I’ve developed a FREE guide walks through what to do about each one.
THE LABOUR MARKET FOR MARKETERS
The real risk for marketing leaders right now is not rust-out
A client came to me last month with a resume that listed every title she held for twenty years. Director, Senior Director, VP.
Headline unemployment across major economies has barely moved this year. Under that flat number, long-term unemployment is climbing everywhere. In the U.S., 1.9 million people have been out of work 27 weeks or longer. In Canada, it is 24% of the unemployed. The term for what this produces is rust-out. Underuse. People sitting in roles they have outgrown, with nowhere obvious to go.
That is the picture for the broader economy. Marketing leadership looks different, and the difference matters for how you should be thinking about your own position.
Companies are not pulling back on marketing leadership. They are being selective about who gets those roles, and they are paying for marketers who can show clear and direct line to revenue impact.
At the same time, the CMO title itself is being unbundled. Boards are moving revenue accountability into growth, commercial, and customer titles rather than keeping it under one CMO seat. Agency-side cuts have been significant. Omnicom announced 15,000 layoffs in September.
A few things to follow from this:
Watch and understand your own function carefully. Both agency and brand-side marketing are moving in different directions right now. Do not wait for a promotion to justify a move. The path to CMO is being redrawn.
Keep Your Story current and then build your resume from that. Plan your next move before it becomes a move out of necessity. With average tenure at four years, staying ready has to run continuously.
The average tenure gives you roughly four years before the role, the title, or the org chart adjusts. The marketers least exposed to that shift are the ones whose story has kept pace with their actual results.
Haven’t thought about your next move? Setup time with me and we’ll figure it out together.
Keep well.
Justin Naidoo
CEO, Executive Coach
Naidoo Career & Executive Coaching Inc.