Marketing, PR and sales

Resources to help you explore career options, find jobs and employers, and access specialist advice and support.

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Advertising


How do I get into it?

Jobs and employers

  • BubbleJobs
    Includes a specific section for graduate and junior roles.
  • Campaign Jobs
    Marketing, media and advertising recruitment.
  • Creative Access
    Internships in the creative industries for candidates from under-represented Minority Ethnic backgrounds.
  • Creative Pool
    UK advertising, creative, design, media and web jobs.
  • The Dots
    Full-time, freelance, internship and project work opportunities.
  • IPA Jobs
    Search for graduate and/or discipline-specific roles.

Further information

Buying, selling and retailing


How do I get into it?


Jobs and employers

  • Aspire
    Media, digital, corporate and property sales. Graduate recruitment nationwide.
  • Barclay Meade Procurement
    Procurement jobs across many sectors.
  • The Grocer
    Specialising in FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) opportunities.
  • InRetail
    Retail vacancies nationwide.
  • Pareto
    Graduate sales jobs across a wide range of industries.
  • Pharmiweb.com
    Pharmaceutical sales jobs worldwide.
  • Simply Sales Jobs
    1000s of sales jobs at all levels UK-wide - less than 10% are telesales.

Further information

  • Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply
    Student membership available at reduced rates. Get access to study support and industry insights.
  • Institute of Sales and Marketing (ISM)
    Student membership offers professional development and networking opportunities, as well as retail discounts from member organisations.
  • British Retail Consortium
    Trade association representing 70% of UK retailers (by turnover). Includes sector news and analytics.

Graduate stories

Hattie
BA (Hons) Business Administration (2011)

Completing my Business Administration course gave me a great foundation of Business knowledge. I have a fuller understanding of business processes and business terminology. It is great to be able to apply all of the knowledge I learnt from the various modules I covered at University into a real life situation at work.

I worked hard at university and graduated with a 2:2 in Business Administration. After hearing all of the broadcasts on the news about employers not being interested in any graduates with less than a 2:1 I began to worry about finding a job and being financially independent. I attended an Assessment Day for Pareto Law back in December and was successful. I then got phone calls every day about different job opportunities that all sounded brilliant. I ended up being offered a job by Pareto Law itself and now work for them as a Business Development Executive and am very happy with my current position.

At Pareto, there are two main sides to my job role. I deal with the client side where I set up meetings with Sales Directors and Managing Directors to go in and meet with them to explain more about how Pareto help businesses increase the efficiency and productivity of their sales teams.

The other side of my job role is recruiting graduate talent. We hold weekly Assessment Days to find the top 20% of graduates (based on their personality and their drive) to produce a pool of successful candidates to put forward to interview with our clients. I know that job hunting can be highly stressful, and many companies will not take a graduate on unless they have experience in the industry. This can be highly de-motivating if you hear it over and over again. Here at Pareto I now help graduates get into great companies simply with a degree and no experience.

So there are three ways that we aim to assist companies to increase revenue:

  • Assess, place, and train hungry and intelligent sales graduates who can start their careers as junior sales people and go on to become top performers.
  • Increase the profitability, productivity and pro-activity of existing sales team through a variety of tailored sales training programmes.
  • We also have the ability to place sales managers and directors through our Pareto executive service.

We have a huge number of clients from large blue chip companies to smaller more entrepreneurial companies. We place graduates in all major industries (IT, Telecoms, Media, Pharmaceutical, FMCG) Once a graduate has been successful through the Pareto assessment process they are quickly placed in a job role suitable for them. We only put 2 or 3 graduates forward for each position so the likelihood of securing a job is very high. They choose which interviews they go for etc. so once they have got through the assessment day we do all of the rest of the hard work!

I really enjoy my job and really want to show graduates that the search for a job does not have to be difficult and that there are a huge amount of amazing companies who are looking to take on fresh graduates who have no experience.

I am planning to stay with Pareto for at least three years. There is a fantastic progression path for me at my job, as there is at all the companies that we place graduates at. The Managing Directors at Pareto really care about the learning and development of graduates which is why they have a great relationship with all the companies that they work with and make sure that the same progression and development is in place for all the graduates that we place.

Marketing and market research

How do I get into it?

Jobs and employers

  • AQR Directory
    Searchable database of qualitative service providers.
  • Aspire
    Digital marketing graduate recruitment nationwide.
  • A Day in the life of
    Digital marketing professionals describe their typical working day.
  • Campaign Jobs
    Marketing, media and advertising recruitment.
  • Creative Access
    Internships in the creative industries for talented young people from under-represented black, Minority Ethnic backgrounds.
  • The Dots
    Full-time, freelance, internship and project work opportunities in the creative industries.
  • Mad.co.uk
    All jobs from marketingweek.co.uk, designweek.co.uk, creativereview.co.uk and econsultancy.com feed in to the MAD jobs portal.
  • Neil’s Recruitment Co.
    A not-for-profit Digital Marketing recruitment agency offering job feeds, free training courses and more.
  • Simply Marketing Jobs
    Marketing roles UK wide.
  • Talent Cupboard
    Freelance opportunities with small businesses and corporates.
  • Virtalent
    Offers casual/part-time work as an online PA/'virtual assistant' to employers nationwide.

Further information

Marketing

Market Research

Direct Marketing

  • Direct Marketing Association
    Blogs regularly on key topics, trends and issues in the industry. Includes extensive resources advising on use of direct marketing channels.
  • Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing
    UK government approved industry body. Offers professional development and networking opportunities. Postgraduate level membership available.

Graduate stories

Steve
BSc (Hons) Business Studies with Marketing (2011)

I worked extremely hard in the final year of my degree to gain as much experience as I could because I was aware of the current climate of the employment market.

I volunteered at the Brighton and Hove Chamber of Commerce, which gave me experience in working with local business and attending business networking events. I also started my own website called nowtweet.it as part of one of my modules, which led to me blogging using the knowledge I obtained from my Digital Marketing module. I became a Business School Ambassador, meaning I attended open days and showed people around the facilities at Brighton, all of which was great for my CV and getting my job.

The university gave me a number of skills in a variety of business disciplines, and in the final year you get to choose electives meaning you can tailor the course to what you are interested in. Digital Marketing modules nurtured my knowledge of the industry and other modules such as Managing People gave me insight to how teams work together to reach goals, and how to generally push a business forward.

My course was a sandwich course meaning I spent one year out gaining experience in the real world, and this feature from Brighton is probably the highlight of the course. This all went in my favour when it came to securing my role at Fresh Egg as a Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Engineer.

I first met Fresh Egg at a University of Brighton Careers Fair. They were looking for students who had a passion for anything digital to join their ever growing team. I went away and looked up Fresh Egg online and realised how passionate they were and I wanted to be part of the team.

I applied for a role at Fresh Egg as they are one of the UK’s leading digital agencies, and they also happen to be only 10 miles away from Brighton. I had an interest in working in digital media from when I started at Brighton, so after four years on my course, I was so happy to be offered a role in SEO.

Fresh Egg offer SEO, web design and digital intelligence to a number of local and national companies and are experts in the field. The work is flexible as you get to work on a number of clients and you are not tied down to any job for overly-lengthy time periods, and the office environment is great. Fresh Egg has a knowledge sharing approach, encouraging teams to mix through social and work events. The office even has a cafeteria and pool table to help staff mix and share their ideas.

Right now I am developing my expertise in SEO with Fresh Egg, who are growing at tremendous speed, and offer fantastic career prospects. One day I hope to climb the ranks and help develop Fresh Egg further into a leading SEO and digital agency.

Fresh Egg are always looking for talented individuals who are interested in SEO, social media, web design and development and everything that comes in between. They offer internship and work experience programs, so anyone who is interested into getting involved in this industry should visit the website and contact them to start their journey!

Public relations (PR)

How do I get into it?

Jobs and employers

  • Creative Access
    Internships in the creative industries for talented young people from under-represented Minority Ethnic backgrounds.
  • The Dots
    Full-time, freelance, internship and project work opportunities in the creative industries.
  • PR Jobs London
    Follow on Twitter for job alerts.
  • PR Week Jobs
    PR Vacancies searchable by industry.
  • PubAffairs Jobs List
    Sign up for a weekly jobs bulletin and get tips on job applications.
  • Simply Marketing Jobs
    Includes PR roles UK wide and some international opportunities.

Further information

  • Association of Professional Political Consultants
    The APPC is the self-regulatory body for UK public affairs practitioners. As well as its traditional membership base of consultancies, APPC membership is now available to trade associations, in-house PA teams and individuals.
  • Government Communications Service (GCS)
    GCS is the professional body for colleagues working in communication roles across government.
  • PR Week
    Trade journal with three regional editions - UK, USA and Asia.
  • Public Relations Consultants Association
    The PRCA promotes all aspects of public relations and internal communications work. Includes careers information and industry news. Student membership is available.

Graduate stories

Mark
BA (Hons) English Language and Linguistics (2012)

Like most students, I was a little apprehensive about life post-graduation; unless you’re of The Apprentice ilk then I think you probably are too. It’s a big change being thrust out into the working world.

There’s a considerable amount of resources that can help ease the transition though and in my case in particular, the Careers Vacancy Service proved invaluable, providing access to graduate training schemes and opportunities that might have otherwise gone unnoticed.

It was the Vacancy Service that advertised my current Copywriting role at Crunch Accounting, a Brighton based online accountancy firm. After a successful application and trial day, I’ve been in the role for just over six months now and it’s one I’m sure I would have missed out on, had I not signed up to the service. Ultimately, the site found me a role specific to my degree.

I’m responsible for producing content for the Crunch website and associated media channels, so I’m continually using skills cultivated during my time at university, applying knowledge gained from linguistics, language and journalism modules.

Following six months in the role I’ve now built up a considerable portfolio, writing extensively online and ghost writing for Crunch Directors for both local and trade press, developing skills I can take throughout my career.

To third years and graduates I’d say make use of everything the Careers Service has to offer and elsewhere, look at more than just the bigger companies. Growing companies like Crunch offer considerable opportunities to graduates, you might just have to look a little harder to find them.