Sales and marketing internship skills for your resume and career

The pandemic is accelerating the general trend of digitalization. By far our most in-demand graduates are those with social media and digital marketing knowledge. Remote work, e-commerce, and internet-enabled services will be growth areas during the recovery from the pandemic's recession.

Strong written and verbal communication skills aid employees in serving both constituents inside and outside the organization. Assessing when action is needed, planning a response, and having a positive attitude go a long way in developing a professional reputation.

In any business role, employees that can analyze data and craft strategy are really important. In a coordinator role, those skills may not be as necessary but will certainly make them stand out and gain attention for additional roles and responsibilities.

Many marketing jobs require a blend of customer insights, data analytics, and strategic marketing decision making. So developing these skills may be helpful to be ready when the right job comes around. Skills in sales are often overlooked, but these are valuable too and have three advantages:
-There are many excellent opportunities in careers in sales that some students overlook.
-Even if one does not take a job in sales, the skills of deals involving business development, problem-solving, and communication are valuable in any career.
-Getting a job in the first place often involves selling oneself.
So having sales skills are also worth having.

If you can't find a job right away, volunteering is an excellent way to develop skills, make contacts, and stay optimistic. Look for opportunities at non-profit organizations, for example, where you may help out a cause that may be important to you and give you a chance to learn about skills that you may lack. Often, serious volunteers are given access and opportunities that paid employees may not get. It is also not uncommon for a volunteer position to become a paid position when opportunities in the organization arise.

In marketing and business, there are also many excellent one-year master's programs being offered to help students develop focused skills in marketing management, data analytics, and customer insights. Some are even focused on particular industries like health care or technology. These programs offer students a year of in-depth learning as well as career coaching and access to recruiters. They can be a treasured addition for students who have healthy non-business undergraduate degrees who may now want to focus on marketing career goals. Also, the starting salary and responsibility level tend to be significantly more than that of a recent graduate of an undergraduate program.

Here is a brief description of the top nine transferable skills that student graduates vitally need to succeed effectively and efficiently in this constantly changing world.

Analytical and Critical Thinking. Employees with these competencies recognize there may be more than one valid point of view or one way of doing things. They evaluate an issue or problem based on multiple perspectives, while accounting for personal biases. They are able to identify when information is missing or if there is a problem, prior to coming to conclusions and making decisions. 

Applied Problem Solving. People with this skill recognize constraints and can generate a set of alternative courses of action. They are able to evaluate alternatives using a set of criteria in order to select and implement the most effective solution and monitor the actual outcomes of that solution. They are also able to recognize there may be more than one valid point of view or course of action.

Ethical Reasoning and Decision Making. Workers trained with these competencies can assess their own moral values and perspectives as well as those of others. They are able to integrate those values and perspectives into an ethical framework for decision making. They consider intentions and anticipate the consequences of actions, both at the personal and social levels, and understand the ethical principles that apply to a situation before making decisions. 

Innovation and Creativity. People with these competencies challenge existing paradigms and propose alternatives without being constrained by established approaches or anticipated responses of others. They bring their knowledge, skills, abilities, and sense of originality to the work that they do. They are willing to take risks and overcome internal struggle to expose their creative self in order to bring forward new work or ideas.    

Digital Literacy. People with this competency have expertise in evaluating sources of information for accuracy, relevance, purpose, and bias. They respond quickly and creatively to emerging communication technologies and to the changing uses of existing technologies. They recognize how the basics of effective communication persist as the technological landscape evolves and changes while also recognizing the opportunities created for new and innovative approaches to get a message across. 

Engaging Diversity. This competency makes employees understand that diversity provides a broader perspective, giving an organization a wider range of options toward resolving challenges. Such employees have the ability to see others points of view and recognize that only seeing things through one’s own culture and experiences is an impediment to achieving goals. They possess the cultural humility to acknowledge their own biases and to manage the conflicts that are inevitable in an increasingly diverse world. 

Active Citizenship and Community Engagement. Employees with this competency understand that creating change and opening paths to new futures starts with the active participation of citizens in their local communities and even spans globally. They actively engage with their communities, because they know that their contributions impact the community and that their engagement with the community in turn shapes them. Through coursework, participation in service-learning projects, and volunteering, they have developed and fine-tuned their awareness of social and cultural differences, of the dynamics and needs of the local as well as global communities and are active citizens who engage with their communities to find new futures. 

Teamwork and Leadership. Employees who possess this ability are able to both lead and be a part of a cohesive group. They understand their roles and responsibilities within a group, and how they may change in differing situations. They are able to influence others as leaders or as contributing members and have the willingness to take action. They leverage the strengths of the group to achieve a shared vision or objective. They effectively acknowledge and manage conflict toward solutions.

Oral and Written Communication. Employees with these vital skills have the ability to intentionally engage with various audiences to inform, persuade, and entertain. They are able to demonstrate their proficiency and expertise in various means of oral and written communication. They can create effective relationships with an audience as they keep in mind the needs, goals, and motivations of all involved. They are able to ensure that the communication they create is functional and clear to achieve a desired outcome.