Top tips for creating a great marketing CV

Looking for a job in the marketing sector? We’re here to share our top tips for a marketing CV so that you can stand out and impress potential employers.

We’ll run through our advice and share an example template you can use to shape your marketing CV layout.

Marketing is a broad sector, so every role needs different skills. You should always tailor your CV for every job, but it’s even more important when applying for distinct positions. Once you’re settled in a type of role, tailoring your CV might just be small tweaks to suit each company. But when you’re exploring different career paths, you need to take extra care to edit your CV to suit the job you’re applying for.

In your marketing CV, you need to cover relevant information related to the role’s area of marketing. You can do that by highlighting relevant experience. Every area requires slightly different skills, so make it clear that you understand that. Switch up your CV to emphasise the most important qualities you’ll use in that job.

Key areas and their related skills are:

• Direct marketing needs numeracy skills and analysis abilities
• Campaign and planning management require exceptional organisational skills
• Creative marketing employers are looking for those with design skills and the ability to come up with innovative ideas
• Communications requires you to have good communication skills (understandably) and empathy with customers and clients

As you list out your past work experience, draw attention to examples that make your CV as relevant as possible. Employers like to see results, so don’t be afraid to include statistics within your task descriptions. For example, you can make “Served and delighted customers” measurable by saying “Served and delighted customers, achieving a 5/5 average feedback survey rating for my service during the summer season” instead.

It’s OK if you don’t have past marketing experience. You can still tailor your CV by adjusting how you talk about transferable skills. So, if you’re going for a marketing project management role and you were a supervisor in a part-time job, mention how you led your team and oversaw their work. Experience doesn’t have to come from work either. Maybe you’ve designed a fan zine for your favourite band, or perhaps you’re in a dance society at university. Both of those examples show creativity, so include them in your CV when relevant.

You’ll have picked up so many transferable skills that will be useful in a marketing role through your studies, part-time work and hobbies. Don’t downplay your skills because you haven’t yet worked in the marketing sector. Instead, make it clear that you’ve got the transferable skills that will help you fit in.

For more information on what employers are looking for, read up on the skills you need for marketing and PR.

Any sort of marketing role will require an element of digital marketing and, therefore, an understanding of the associated technology.

While employers won’t expect you to know everything about industry tools, it’ll help if you know your way around social media platforms at a minimum. Certain roles will require knowledge of tech like video or photo editing software, too.

If you’re going for a creative role, perhaps you could create an online portfolio of example marketing work (like advertising mock-ups or video edits) to flex your skills. This will showcase your confidence working with websites and your design skills. If you do that, add the link to your CV.

As lots of marketing roles require creativity, use your CV to show you’ve got it.

You could experiment with an innovative CV design. However, your format will depend on the culture of the organisation. A quirky agency is likely to appreciate a visually-led CV, but it probably won’t fly if you’re applying to be a marketing assistant in a traditional firm.

An infographic CV template is great – as long as it fits the role. For example, you can show your job history through a timeline or highlight your skills with relevant icons. Just make sure that anything eye-catching is also easy to read. If you’re going for a design role, it will show employers your creative flair from the get-go.

Before your CV comes your cover letter.

Just like your marketing CV, you need to tailor your cover letter for every role. You want to market yourself with a concise and achievement-driven CV, so your cover letter is your space to expand.

Use your cover letter to draw attention to specific areas and to show your research (ie. what you know about the company and its clients, or what you like about its previous marketing campaigns).

For more help here, check out our advice on how to write a good graduate cover letter.

Writing a great marketing CV means following general CV advice, such as highlighting your transferable skills, and making adjustments to show you understand the sector. As many roles in the marketing industry require creativity, you can usually be more experimental with your CV than you could be in other sectors. Just make sure you cover all the key points before you focus on design.

We’ve put together an example CV template to get you started. It outlines the basics of what you need to include (ie. education, employment, skills). However, for marketing roles, feel free to experiment with the formatting, colours, fonts and layout to show your personal brand. Make yourself stand out from the crowd, while keeping it scannable for busy recruiters.