Demand for marketing talent in the last year has greatly outpaced supply, a new report released by McKinley Marketing Partners today finds.
“There are more open positions than qualified marketers to fill them,” said Michelle Boggs, McKinley Marketing Partners president and CEO. “This is true across industries, and we can see it specifically in marketing hires.”
American companies hired an average of 3.8 marketing professionals in 2017, a 32 percent reduction from 2016’s figure of 5.6. While this growth was less than expected, McKinley suggests it is the result of a healthy industry.
“At full employment, businesses have an extremely difficult time finding available, qualified workers to fill job openings,” the report reads.
According to McKinley’s findings, this lack of growth is not likely to continue: 69 percent of marketing leaders anticipate that they will expand their team roster, up from just 25 percent last year. Just 3 percent of respondents anticipated any kind of shrinkage whatsoever.
Digital marketing and creative services are the expertise in highest demand, with 59 percent and 43 percent of respondents seeking new marketing talent in the fields, respectively.
However, digital marketers and creative professionals were some of the least likely to be on a job search. Just 19 percent of digital marketing talent claimed to be actively searching for a new job, and creatives were close behind at 18 percent.
Generally, while 97 percent of the marketers surveyed reported a willingness to move on from their current position, only 24 percent are actively seeking new employment.
According to McKinley, these low marketing talent supply figures bode well for existing teams hoping to hang on to their people. “Fewer people even occasionally looking for new roles suggests a lift in job satisfaction,” the report reads.
“This year marks one of the best years ever to be a marketer,” the report declares. “In a hiring landscape in which there are fewer qualified candidates than there are positions to fill, how do you attract talent?”
To reach its findings, McKinley surveyed 329 different marketing professionals in October of last year.
