The following is a special guest article. The author, Andy Larkin, works for 3Search, a leading boutique digital marketing recruitment business operating in the UK, United States, and Mainland Europe. Here Andy brings PostFunnel’s community of CRM marketers a unique, professional, and deep angle on an especially important topic these days – the CRM job market, within the broader context of the COVID-19 global health and economic crisis.
In one fell swoop, a global pandemic fundamentally has changed everything. It brought about the greatest change in the global movement of people since the Second World War as the world locked down, and a sharp global recession abruptly brought the world’s major economies to a halt. For many, what COVID-19 took away in terms of liberties, it replaced with time.
Workers have been saving anything up to three hours daily by enforcing work from home and completely freed-up social calendars. Here in the UK, nine million UK workers were put on furlough, and almost 700,000 made redundant, giving many the headspace to reflect on what they want in a way simply not possible during the juggling act of the ‘work/life balance.’
It is no surprise then that as our lives have so profoundly changed, so have we. In the months since we left the first Corona-induced lockdown, I have noticed more changes, happening quicker than ever, in terms of what CRM marketers prioritize when looking for new opportunities.
These changes are mostly influenced by either new ambition or out of anxiety. Some of these trends started long before 2020, but this unprecedented period of change has accelerated existing patterns.
Others are virtually brand new.
I look to summarize what CRM marketers are looking for right now, in the post-outbreak world, so that you might consider what is important to you as the job market continues to pick up.
COVID proofing one’s career
Over 36% of marketers felt worried about their job due to COVID-19’s fall out. For CRM marketers, one sure way to reduce this stress level has been finding employment in businesses that have business models ready-made for a pandemic.
Increasingly I have noticed that CRM candidates seek out opportunities in COVID’ winner’ industries rather than traditionally popular sectors such as travel or retail. Ecommerce has been a significant benefactor of increasing consumers’ demand to have products delivered to the door.
Food recipe box startup Mindful Chef experienced a 452% increase in sales in sales as we entered lockdown, and has sustained that growth.
Amongst the behemoths of online retail, Amazon’s share price has almost doubled since the start of the pandemic. CRM marketers have played an outsize role in ensuring that this is not a ‘flash in the pan,’ and that customers are engaged with through a range of communication and retained to generate long term value. More of you want to get in on that action.
Financial technology businesses centered around helping the consumer save money during times of hardships, and those greasing the wheels of e-commerce, are also more desirable than ever.
Over two-thirds of fintech plan expansion in the next 18 months, proving the durability of this sector. 25% of my vacancies have been in fintech during the pandemic, and more are recognizing the stability within the space.
Cash-rich businesses have proven another incentive. More CRM marketers than ever ask about the liquidity of businesses. Take that into account as well.
Pursuing passions
A prolonged period away from the office has given everybody the time to reflect on their pre-COVID work life and whether or not it was entirely beneficial to their lives. There has been a significant number of people I have spoken to motivated to work with products they might use themselves, focus on areas of the customer experience they care about or join more progressive cultures.
There has been scant research on the focus away from pursuing wealth towards passion, but it certainly seems to be a theme now when I understand the priorities in a job search. For this cohort of job seekers, they may be motivated out of aspiration rather than anxiety.
Channel specific email marketers have increasingly discussed wanting more exposure to more varied work, gaining experience with multi-channel customer journeys, and incorporating mobile push and in-app messaging.
Junior candidates want more exposure to the ‘thinking’ around communicating with their audience, rather than monotonously deploying the messaging.
Increasingly, senior CRM marketers in larger businesses are looking for ‘skin in the game,’ referring to equity/share options associated with startups. Could this be borne out of the fact CRM marketers are the customer nerve-center and the front line in retaining the most profitable customers that hyper accelerate businesses? It is five times cheaper to retain a customer than acquire one. These critical customer-wizards seek the rewards for their efforts, especially when one Marketing Director I spoke to recently told me, “CRM saved our business during lockdown.”
Overall, we do see fewer candidates that simply expect more cold hard cash in a move.
Autonomy & Flexibility
Swathes of relationship marketers were liberated in March from the perils of micromanagement. No more could a manager simply look over their shoulder and subtly change how a task was being done.
It was, and for many still is, impossible for work and performance to be analyzed in such a way.
Physical distance has curbed the worst excesses of micromanagement and made individuals more independent on a day-to-day basis. Almost to a tee, professionals mention wanting to take more ownership of what they do and be accountable to work remotely.
Encouragingly, more employers than ever are looking at adopting a more flexible approach. There are some really encouraging signs that this is more than a pipe dream. For example, OYO is offering its 17,000 employees a £100 allowance to set themselves up at home for the long term.
The beauty of CRM marketing is that the job CAN be done remotely, and in much larger businesses, CRM marketers might be used to working with product, analytics, or creative teams that sit in other countries anyway.
COVID-19 has helped business leaders realize what their employees have for a long time, that at least in part, working from home is practical and does not impact performance.
Upskilling
A sure way to stand out in a competitive job market is to gain those skills that make you indispensable. There is strong evidence that fellow CRM marketers are acquiring skills and seeking opportunities where employers actually give them the means to do so.
I have spoken to more CRM marketers than ever looking to upskill in coding languages they may have touched on before, like HTML or even SQL. The time afforded by marketers during COVID-19 is changing the standard of what ‘good CV’ looks like and many seek to react. More candidates are looking for opportunities to use leading customer engagement platforms/marketing automation tools such as Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Braze, Optimove, or Adobe Marketing Cloud. Some are willing to sacrifice their desired brands to get this exposure.
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That may be a response from the job market. It is an employers’ market currently with more CRM marketers looking for new opportunities as a direct impact from COVID-19. Europe’s leading employers are more specific about their requirements as a result.
If you are in the process of looking for a stronger hold of your current role, or a new one in the next 12 months, it might be worth even asking your current employer what they can offer to help improve and develop.
Either way, the CRM job market is different than it was just a few months ago. And adapting is always the smart choice.