<p>So I'm a sophomore looking to explore all of my business majors options before I choose one next fall. </p>
<p>So far I have a pretty good idea about most majors except for marketing, it would be great to hear some opinions from marketing majors and even graduates!</p>
<p>I’m not a marketing major, but can I chime in?</p>
<p>I don’t want to bash anyone or hurt any feelings; marketing is a fine major.</p>
<p>But generally, marketing majors (at my school at least) are the ones without jobs. But if your interested in marketing, then go for it.</p>
<p>I think the reason they have higher unemployment is because there are other people, such as finance and accounting people, who understand more about costs, which is vital to marketing. A lot of times, marketing people don’t really understand cost involved, or the statistical elements necessary for decision making.</p>
<p>Just my 2 cents, and again, I don’t mean to beat anyone up. Just saying what I have observed.</p>
<p>^Sorry but I see so many wrong assumptions in your post</p>
<p>^ I dont see many assumptions. I think its fair to say marketing people are glorified salesman. Salesman dont end up with jobs a lot. </p>
<p>Skill based careers have much higher employment rates (accounting, medicine, finance, engineering, etc.) compared to theory based things like marketing, political science, “general business”, etc.</p>
<p>And Thumper, those wrong assumptions would be…???</p>
<p>Salesman dont end up with a lot of jobs? Where are you getting this from? The last time I checked the employment stats, there are TONS of salesman in my county (top 10 city in the US).</p>
<p>I wasnt necessarily talking about that though. Marketing is very different from accounting. Marketers are the front people who interact with the customers, accountants arent. There is a HUGE deal of psychology involved in marketing that accountants know nothing about. You cant simply have in-house accountants make a marketing plan and expect to do as well.</p>
<p>Im neither an accounting nor marketing major btw</p>
<p>Based on much marketing I have seen in my life, there is a HUGE deal of psychology that marketers know nothing about, but I digress. The problem I see with a marketing major is this. You get a hodgepodge of classes - consumer behavior, product management, sales management, market reseach, advertising, but no real focus. That is what I believe beguiler was after (although I don’t want to put words in his or her mouth). For example, if you are selling chemicals or machinery to manufacturing companies, do you want train a marketing major in engineering or an engineering with an aptitude for customer servicde with some selling techniques. As an controller, I have been brought to sales calls so I could understand the problems our customers face in pricing products. It helped me to come up with solutions to problems because I had intimate knowledge of our cost structure. When it comes to market research, do you want a marketing major who had a class in market research and elementary statstics or do you want a statstician who knows how to design research studies. While I am not in marketing, the mother of my child is a VP of marketing. She had a communications majors. She had a leg up on marketing majors because she learned how to write. </p>
<p>Ok. That is my two cents.</p>
<p>Marketing isnt as technical nor as focused as accounting because there are many areas you can go to in marketing like global marketing, IMC, supply chain management, etc. But like I said, marketing and accounting are VERY different. One deals with forecasts, the other deals with the past. Would a firm hire an accountant to determine the price, product, promotion and place of a particular good or service? No, accountants are trained to audit and bookkeep. Therefore an accountant simply cant fill the role of a marketer like others have implied.</p>
<p>I am NOT saying any random marketing major can simply go into any industry and have success. Marketing is far from that simple. There are frequent interactions from each department but you cant simply have an accountant do your marketing for you, because they dont know how to without some training and experience.</p>
<p>Relative to accounting, marketing is probably not as highly demanded. It still doesnt mean they arent sought after by employers. It is a practical field, whether it is as employable as accounting or not.</p>
<p>“Marketing isnt as technical nor as focused as accounting because there are many areas you can go to in marketing like global marketing, IMC, supply chain management, etc.”</p>
<p>Right. That’s the point.</p>
<p>Would a firm hire an accountant to determine the price, product, promotion and place of a particular good or service? No, accountants are trained to audit and bookkeep. Therefore an accountant simply cant fill the role of a marketer like others have implied."</p>
<p>First, as I said before, I did detemine prices. You obviously were not in the room when I was sitting down with customers woreking through marketing plans to determine what things we could do to meet their price points. My sales people and marketing people called me in because they couldn’t do it. Second a large part of my jobs in accounting has been to forecast, including beating up salesmen to justify their projections. Third, marketers had to convince me that their promotional programs were worthwhile and they had to listen to my input because I would question their assumptions. Finally, no where did the earlier poster imply that an accountant could simply fill a marketer’s role. The poster said accountants understood things marketers did not as I have just related to you.</p>
<p>Thumper, you said you were not an accountant. We are invoilved with all aspects of the business and have to know how all is integrated.</p>
<p>awesome posts guys, I like how everybody is arguing with different points while comparing different majors with marketing.</p>
<p>keep em’ coming!</p>
<p>What Geo said is exatcly what I meant. (Thanks for clarifiying Geo)</p>
<p>But Thumper, I believe you were correct as well in that marketing people have better skills at asessing the needs of others (customers) and psychological implications of marketing.</p>
<p>However, to the OP, I would like to add that what we are all getting at here is this:</p>
<p>In good times, Marketing majors are in huge demand, I am sure, during a growing economy, as any company must capitalize on their growth, and push their product to market more than their competitor; it is a game of one upmanship. Marketing majors spend their whole day coming up with ideas why the product is better than the competitors. Naturally, accountants don’t have time for this, but they are a necessity to remind the marketing people of the real world of costs, demand, forecasting, etc.</p>
<p>However, when the economy is not growing, I would guess that marketing people are the first to go. It is a very elastic career. Meaning that it reponds significantly to economic conditions. Which can be good or bad. And not that marketing isn’t important in a bearish economy, it may be even more important than in high growth. But when your primary objective is to cut costs, you really don’t want to be investing heavily in marketing when consumption is low. The engineers (or whoever designs the products and services) and the accountants would be able to pull off the necessary sales and marketing in a pinch to get through the tough times, until you have enough money to hire specialists (experts in marketing) to grow your organization when your advertising is really going to count and have the highest payoff. That is why I suspect you would see very significant cyclical employment in sales and marketing.</p>
<p>Also, Thumper indicated that there are many positions for sales people. My thinking on this is that Sales people aren’t the same as marketing people, as sales people actually go out and sell the product, and marketing people promote the product through the sales people. But both are similar and marketing and sales go hand in hand, so I guess my point is moot.</p>