On March 13, the marketing area at Fordham University’s Gabelli School of Business will host its first Marketing Careers Conference. The event will be hosted from 1-5 p.m. at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus and will feature a number of networking and career exploration opportunities for marketing students, including one-on-one breakout sessions with marketing professionals, a panel with marketing executives from diverse industries and interactive meetings with companies in a career fair-like setting. 

A total of 41 highly-regarded companies will be present at the Marketing Careers Conference, including agencies BBDO, IPG MediaBrands and GroupM. Marketing students will be able to interact with companies from a wide variety of industries, including IBM, BNY Mellon, Kodak and Oppenheimer. 

The Marketing Careers Conference is a critical step in a multi-year plan for the marketing area. The marketing faculty noticed that there was no systematic organization of the many career paths within marketing for students to explore. A team was organized to identify and categorize marketing job postings in the United States to help introduce and illustrate the vast variety of marketing positions available to students. They published their findings in the Careers in Marketing brochure, which is now widely distributed both inside and outside Fordham. 

“Initially, we were trying to understand: what are these careers, and how can we better help our students? But the applications of these marketing careers were very broad,” said Dr. Mohammad Nejad, chair of the marketing area and associate professor of marketing. 

The next step is to connect students with marketing professionals in-person and introduce them to the myriad opportunities within the industry. “The thought is to bring in people from the industry and better introduce these diverse careers to our students,” said Nejad. 

The Marketing Careers Conference is led by Dr. Genevieve O’Connor, associate professor of marketing, and Aniko DeLaney, marketing lecturer, with support from Aida Lahood, the marketing area program manager. In addition, several other marketing faculty are engaged in supporting the event. O’Connor and DeLaney have recruited 25 students and organized them in different teams, to promote the event, organize volunteers and ensure a smooth run on March 13. This way, students can gain hands-on experience in event planning and organizing as well.

The conference will kick off with a speaker panel featuring top marketing executives from Accenture, IBM, Lafayette 148, Mindshare and The New York Times. Students will be able to gain firsthand knowledge about how marketing careers function in a variety of industries.

When selecting the panel speakers, the organizers of the Conference sought professionals who would represent the diversity of industries that intersect with marketing, from fashion to technology, to offer students a well-rounded perspective and appeal to students’ wide range of interests. 

“We’re hoping that for the students who are sitting in the audience, everybody has a person that they can relate to, or aspire to, or really gain insights from,” said DeLaney. The organizers reached out to professionals they know who are not only passionate about their jobs, but also passionate about creating a connection with students, according to O’Connor. 

Students will also have the opportunity to connect one-on-one with marketing professionals during 15-minute breakout sessions, where they can review their resume, practice their 60-second elevator pitch and form relationships. 

“We’re offering the chance for [marketing students] to meet one-on-one with career executives for resume feedback and speed interviews, and I think you can’t even put a price tag on that. That is going to be invaluable for our students to have that time to network with those executives, but also to learn firsthand what they’re doing right, how they can continue to strengthen those skills and also potentially identify areas of improvement,” said O’Connor. 

The event will feature a number of other opportunities for personal brand development, including professional LinkedIn headshots and tabling with companies in a career fair-like setting. 

“It’s all about creating a forum and the opportunity for marketing students to develop relationships with companies and agencies that have job opportunities in the future,” said DeLaney. 

Marketing students have shown impressive interest in the conference so far, with over 230 students registered for the event. The conference presents a first-of-its kind opportunity, as this is the first career conference solely dedicated to the Gabelli School’s marketing students, according to O’Connor. 

The organizers hope that this event will provide both short-term and long-term benefits for students. In the short-term, he wants to show students where they can start their careers in marketing, realize their strengths and areas for improvement and gather advice from marketing experts. 

Additionally, they want to give students inspiration for their careers in the long-term. “Sometimes you might hear a hint that sparks an idea or it stays with you for a long time. I’m really hoping that [students] will get some of these really great ideas as they listen to the executives, and as they talk to the industry experts,” said Nejad.