Putting Together the Perfect CV for an Inbound Marketing Role

Before you can market clients, you need to be able to market yourself. If you want to explore a career in marketing, then you need to make yourself as attractive as possible to potential employers when applying. It all starts with your CV. Here are a few tips on putting together the perfect CV for an inbound marketing role.

Creating Your CV

The Basics

We’re going to try and focus on marketing-specific tips but there are some basic things to keep in mind when creating your CV. Here are a few quick things to remember.

• Keep your CV to one side of A4 paper. No one wants to read your life’s work.

• Make sure you only include information that’s relevant. Marketing teams don’t need to know about your Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award.

• Don’t lie or embellish the truth. You’ll be found out eventually.

• Include a personal statement that summarises your abilities and strengths. This is an opportunity to stand out from the crowd and really sell yourself.

The Perfect Marketing CV

Firstly, there’s no such thing as the perfect marketing CV. Every employer and manager look for something slightly different in a CV, so there’s no one right answer. However, there are some steps you can take to be memorable and increase your chances of receiving that all-important interview.

Experience is highly desirable but not absolutely essential. At Digital 22, some of our brightest and best Marketers and Strategists had no background in marketing before starting with us.

If you can include previous experience that you think will be relevant then great. But don’t be put off applying for a role that interests you because you’re worried that you haven’t done it before. For example, Digital 22 offer extensive training and development plans to make sure you get up to speed.

If you have come from a marketing background, then be specific about the work you’ve done and the campaigns you’ve been a part of. Back any claims you make with specifics.

I was part of a team that grew a client’s blog through a variety of methods.

I was part of a team that increased a blog’s subscriber base from 1,000 to more than 10,000 over the course of 12 months through targeted email campaigns and split testing.

In the above example, the second version is far more impressive and interesting because we have an exact idea of the success this person has had and how they went about doing it. The first version is vague and doesn’t reflect their achievements.

Standing Out

Yours won’t be the only CV that’s looked at when you apply for a marketing role, especially if it’s a sought-after agency. To get ahead of the competition, you need to stand out and make an immediate positive impression.

This doesn’t mean using fancy colours or fonts as you’re more likely to annoy someone and end up in the bin. The most effective way of standing out is with your personal statement and accompanying cover letter.

Both the statement and letter give you the opportunity to grab someone’s attention and convince them in just a few hundred words that you’re the perfect applicant. They should finish reading and already be planning to give you a call.

Market yourself by using targeted and engaging language. Research the role and agency you’re applying to and work out what it is they’re searching for and what they value. If blogs on the website focus on how important CTAs are when it comes to creating prospects, then mention the work you’ve done on CTAs in the past.

Treat the agency you’re applying to as a customer that’s searching for a product. What are they looking for? What attributes are they most interested in and what’s something they wouldn’t want to see that would send them looking elsewhere?

Layout

As with any good website, all of the important information someone reading your CV might need should be easy to find. Keep it simple and make sure it’s accessible.

If there’s a key achievement you’re especially proud of, then don’t hide it in the middle of a boring-looking paragraph. Shout about it!

We’d recommend your name, contact details and then the URL of any relevant blog or website that you might want to send someone to. After that, write your personal statement and then a brief work history section. It’s worth listing relevant skills that the agency would want to see in an Inbound Marketer.

Ready to Put Your CV to the Test?

If you’ve followed our advice and you’d like to put your CV to the test, then why not apply for one of Digital 22’s open vacancies? We’re always looking for new talent to join our growing inbound marketing agency.

If there’s no role you’re currently interested in, then you can submit your CV for us to keep on file. We’ll then get in touch if we think you’re right for a position that opens in the future.