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For those of you who are/were job searching, how is going? I’ve been looking for 8 months, actually really a year. I’m feeling so discouraged.
I’m at the Digital Marketing Manager/SEM Manager/Paid Media Manager level looking to move laterally or slightly above, like a Sr. Digital Marketing Manager or Sr. SEM Manager, or even stay a Digital Marketing Manager. So higher end of an individual contributor, not looking to be a people manager. My salary requirements are on higher end, however I would say most of the places I get at least the phone screening at are in line what my salary expectations.
I apply to probably about 3-6 jobs per week, and hear back about half the time from the recruiter. Overall since August, there have probably been about 6 jobs that I truly wanted, but they gave the “we’re looking for something else”.
I’m not sure what I’m missing? The three things I’m seeing are (1) managing the agency relationship who manages the media campaigns (2) more lead generation, dealing with MQL type leads (3) managing all types of paid media, including search.
I haven’t managed an agency relationship (but I help to manage our Google/Bing vendors), but that’s something I express in these interviews that I want to do that. Regarding the lead generation, I had a client 10 years ago that I managed these campaigns for (which I call out in the interviews), and I’ve worked at other lead generation companies in the past. However currently even though I deal with conversions, units and CPAs, it’s not really lead generation. I have managed display and social campaigns in the past but it’s been about 5 years since I managed them, I’ve managed paid search for more than 10 years.
The last rejection I got was Friday. It *was* very early on, and I only spoke to the recruiter, but our call went well and I was excited about it. The job for for managing multiple paid channels for a lead gen (MQL) company, owning the agency relationship. Then another role I was recently interested in was paid search for a lead gen (MQL) company, but they said they need someone with more lead generation experience. But then they re-posted the job about a week later!
With the ones I really wanted, I tried searching on LinkedIn for the person who got the jobs (through advanced search), but couldn’t find anything. I wanted to look at their experience to see what I’m missing.
I’m currently in a really bad situation with my job after a merger, with a grossly incompetent boss who came on a year ago. For my mental health, I really need to find a new job. I just feel so hopeless at this point. I feel like it was so much easier to find a new job earlier in my career.
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1 Reply
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It’s a pretty bad time right now, I got laid 3 weeks ago, let’s just say I applied to 70 jobs, and so far I only had 3 interviews. Last year I had recruiters calling me left and right, and for every 5 jobs I applied for, I had 1 interview.
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What is your salary requirement range, if you don’t mind me asking.
I’m trying to ballpark what this role pays, for a mid level ppc media buyer.
What would your ideal role look like? Like, what parts of your job are you fav? Thanks!
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Not sure what your salary expectation are. Keep in mind we have our [2023 salary survey](https://www.reddit.com/r/PPC/comments/11xi72k/ppc_salary_survey_2023_final_report/). A lot of people are getting laid off, which makes it an employer market right now. It is a lot harder to land a job today than even 5 months ago. We were interviewing people back in Feb and some people still thought it was an employee market. Make sure your salary level is in line with the market where you are based. A lot of great people are willing to do the same job for a bit less than they were 6 – 12 months ago.
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Its a really tough market, I feel for you!
For me, as I hire for lead gen PPC in specific, I’d be looking for more recent lead gen experience. Maybe mention what you’ve learned about staying up to date in lead gen PPC?
I applaud you for being honest in your interviews, and that would be a point in your favor, but I’d want to know what you’ve done to ensure you know current best practices.
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I would apply to a lot more than 3-7 jobs a week tbh
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How many years of experience do you have? If you’re on the east coast, wanting that much money as an individual contributor is a big ask.
Seems where you’re at now is more realistic, assuming you’re in the east coast.
No idea about west coast salaries for PPC.
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If you are older than 32-35 there is major ageism going on in digital marketing these days. Too many companies have mad3 30 year old Director’s or Vice President’s of marketing and they won’t hire people older than they are an especially if they are a good digital marketer because they are afraid of looking like they aren’t as good as experienced digital marketer’s.
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I don’t think your salary demands are ridiculous and there seems to be more jobs opening up and recruiters reaching out again on LinkedIn. For reference I’ve been doing paid search for about 6 years at agency side and my salary is within the range you’re looking for and what I’m being offered by in house and other agencies when they reach out (with some variance)
I’m wondering if you’re describing your experience or expectations well? For the most part recruiters and teams want to see that you know what you’re talking about when it comes to search when they ask about your day to day and what type of projects and tests you’ve overseen along with budget/accounts/leading teams etc. Talk about the tactics you leveraged and what outcomes they led to or why you utilized them in the first place -
Companies are also looking to outsource their ppc/digital marketing work to countries that have cheap labor.
Take me for example, Ive been working in the digital marketing industry for almost 6 years now. I learned Google Ads from my first job which was from a Google vendor here in our country. Ive worked for multiple agencies based in Australia and the biggest monthly ad spend on the accounts I handled reached about $300k aud at one point. I also know meta but not as well as Gads. And I can probably do half of what you can do atleast – all for a measly $20k usd. The only major difference is I work remote, which is not really a big deal nowadays when companies in your country outsource work in my country from reputable agencies.
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I’m sorry. I’ve had the same situation. Sometimes I feel like some companies interview ppl only to get strategy ideas.
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3-6 jobs per week is very low volume. Atleast apply for 25-30
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I was laid off about 6 weeks back myself and I am also on the market. I’m also in TX and your salary range is high for anything outside of tech companies. I haven’t found any employers willing to go above $135k in my search unless they’re based in California or New York. I made a few thousand less in my last company than you currently make.
If you have something now, honestly, I would hold on to it and work side projects for a bit if you’re not fulfilled in your current work. I am starting to see a few digital marketers that I formerly worked with and were laid off on either side of Christmas starting to land new positions, but I think the next 5-6 months will be rough sledding in our job market.
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