An In-depth Look Into the Sales and Marketing Job Search Economy In 2012

Measuring analytics, keyword phrases and locations of visitors to the corporate website of KAS Placement, I have seen some trends as to where the worst locations for employment are, why this is (or speculation as to) and what cities and positions have near vanished due to the continuing poor economic conditions of our country and across the globe.

The Worst City for Finding a Good Job:

Philadelphia - Bar none, this is the worst metro area for sales and marketing jobs. This statement takes into account the number of job seekers in sales, marketing and media relative to that of open, decently paying jobs in those disciplines. Out of every city in the United States, Philadelphia is the 2nd most visited city to our website, however does not rank in the top 10 in number of open jobs. I would go as far to say that taking into account the ratio between open jobs in sales and marketing an open job seekers, Philadelphia is just as bad, if not worse tha
Miami, Phoenix, Las Vegas or any other cities that fell most victim to the housing crisis.

Unsurprisingly, Philadelphia and Miami have crime rates that make New York City and Los Angeles seem suburban.

The Hottest Industry Hiring Sales and Marketing Personnel:

Facebook Advertising and All Related - Many times when an industry is hot, the popularity comes with a pending bubble burst, but industries related to Facebook Advertising and some social media have not hit that point yet. They continue to escalate and create jobs while many other industries lack active hiring for sales and marketing personnel. While this industry may be the hottest, it is also the most exclusive to get into if you are coming from outside the industry as a sales, marketing or media professional.

The Vanished Jobs in Sales and Marketing:

Pure Sales Management - When starting this agency nearly 7 years ago, there was a dramatically higher demand for sales management professionals whose job description was to simply manage the existing sales reps. The end goal in this positions was growing business for the company by improving the performance of their subordinates, rather than by new business acquisition themselves in addition to any people management responsibilities. However, due to budgetary cutbacks and lower incomes and revenues than nearly a decade ago, hiring companies are attempting to get the most out of their sales management professionals by adding new sales requirements, regardless of the number of sales professionals that the managers are responsible for. In the past few years, pure sales management roles have been hard to come by and those available pay less on commission than they used to.

Gen. Marketing Jobs - The demand for intangible marketing professionals such as "branding experts" has greatly diminished. Many job seekers in the field have decided to go independent, as these types of marketing jobs seem to be first out and last back in. The marketing job seekers that hiring companies want these days know how to formulate, program and design blogs, social media outlets, search engine optimization, pay per click and even some web programming. Marketing has gone from creative to more analytical and continues this progression apace, while the economy remains in a continuously poor, dark state.

A Bright Spot in the Foreseeable Hiring Future:

As of the past few months, our staffing agency has seen a lot of smaller, start-up companies looking for sales and marketing professionals around the U.S. - even in smaller cities such as Denver, Seattle and Oklahoma City. Some of this growth is due to venture capital while other drivers include companies going on the offensive to try and grow market share within the respective industry.