Majority of employers can’t find qualified people for digital marketing jobs » Strategy


More than half of Canadian employers seeking to fill digital marketer jobs are finding it difficult to find qualified candidates, according to a study by the Digital Marketing Sector Council

While digital marketing has become one of the most popular career choices among professionals in the past several years, the study found 56% of respondents face challenges finding candidates with the skills and credentials they seek.

A large part of the problem is that students in traditional post-secondary marketing programs are learning about digital marketing theory, “but they’re missing the application,” says Chris Penner, operations coordinator of the Digital Marketing Sector Council (DMSC). “There’s a disconnect between what education employers want, and what that education actually does for candidates.”

The DMSC is a not-for-profit that provides research and insights related to the labour market for digital marketing roles in Canada. Its board includes representatives from organizations such as TikTok, LinkedIn and Amazon.“A big reason for creating [the DMSC] was to help employers understand what to look for when hiring digital marketers to make sure that they’re getting the most qualified candidates,” Penner says, “and to inform those in the training and education space of the skills employers are looking for.”

For its study, the DMSC interviewed 93 industry practitioners, hiring managers and digital marketing trainers in a wide variety of industries in Canada.

Seventy-one percent of respondents said organic social media management is the most important technical skill they look for when hiring for digital marketing roles, followed by social media paid advertising management (60.2%) and search engine optimization (60.2%).

The study also found the top three technical skills missing on candidates’ resumés are: utilization of AI tools (32.3%), influencer management (28%) and search engine optimization (26.9%).

Penner notes, however, that the use of AI is fairly new in the marketing world and employers don’t necessarily know what skills they’re looking for. “Are they simply looking for someone who knows how to use ChatGPT or for someone who knows how to use the AI features in Microsoft Excel to analyze a dataset?”

He adds that there is a lack of awareness about other key aspects, too. “When people hear the word digital marketing, they think of social media. They don’t think of how email marketing and automation are intertwined and how things like influencer management and public relations are intertwined.”

Penner notes that bachelor’s degrees are seen as the most widely accepted education level (68.8%) for digital marketing candidates, but the curriculum of these post-secondary programs are far from comprehensive. “Students are not graduating with the skills to go to the back end of a WordPress website and optimize for search engine rankings. They’re not learning those types of things in post-secondary.”

However, Penner says traditional post-secondary education should not be dismissed out of hand because it provides students with real world skills that can be transferred to workplaces.

“If post-secondary can move the needle a bit in connecting with industry to advance and update their curriculums, I think that would go a long way in making sure that when people finish their program, their skills are practical.”

But Penner says there is also a need to build awareness with employers about less traditional forms of education for digital marketing, such as continuing education training providers like Jelly Academy and Growclass.“Their curriculums are very practical,” less expensive than traditional post-secondary education and much shorter – the majority are between nine and 11 weeks, he says. “If an employer wants someone who can drive results, I recommend looking at candidates with that type of training.”

A combination of traditional education and training that develops practical skills should also be considered when it comes to considering digital marketing candidates, Penner says. Only 49.5% of respondents in the study said they recognize industry certifications like Hootsuite Social Marketing as job qualifications for digital marketing positions.

Penner says the DMSC is taking its survey findings to industry stakeholders, including digital marketing conferences like SocialEast and SocialWest. 

“We’re going to keep trying to spread awareness about the findings in this report, and engage post-secondary to pass along the findings and see if we can move the needle.”

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