Watch CBS News

L.A.'s Marketing Students Prepare For A Projected Employment Boon

Career-driven students that aspire to become marketing managers are expected to find ample employment throughout metro Los Angeles within the next five years.

LA-Edu
(Photo Courtesy of Dr. Tye W. Jackson)

"By 2020, the marketing discipline in L.A. County is projected to be one of the fastest growth areas for employment at more than 41 percent over 2010," said Dr. Tye W. Jackson, a professor and chair of the marketing department in the College of Business and Economics at California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA). "This creates enormous opportunities for marketing managers to lead and learn in L.A.'s diverse business sectors."

Professionals that can navigate through the digital world should have the best opportunity to secure viable positions. In L.A., top marketing managers can earn an annual salary in excess of $128,000, according to current data. This is one reason CSULA remains vigorous in its focused mission to help prospective marketing managers land jobs.

"CSULA provides students with robust experiential learning strategies and service learning tools that focus on the marketable and employable skill needs of the L.A. market and community, respectively," said Jackson, who earned his Ph.D. in econometrics from the University of California at Berkeley.

How does this technique work?

"After learning the foundational and functional skills of marketing, students approach themselves as a product or brand and learn to market themselves. In doing so, they acquire employable skills, such as hard and soft finesse."

What other skills must a manager hold?

"A successful marketing manager needs to be competent in social media and big data, international business and health care, and able to work in an inter-disciplinary and cross-functional manner."

How is this field changing?

"The boundaries for the economy have become blurred and more global, where physical locations no longer matter. So a marketing manager needs to be comfortable using technology as an enabler to get the work done."

What is your message to striving marketing managers?

"One of the basic tenets of marketing is the feedback loop to continuously improve. As such, marketing managers need to apply this concept to themselves and manage their own self-improvement by seeking out challenging and high-visibility projects."

Sharon Raiford Bush is an award-winning journalist who covers topics of social interest in greater Los Angeles. Some news articles she has authored have been archived by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. Sharon also contributes to Examiner.com.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.