Companies are eager to hire marketers. The number of marketing hires is estimated to increase by 6.4% in the next year, according to The CMO Survey, which interviewed 324 marketers at the VP level or above across 13 industry sectors.

The biggest percent change in planned marketing hires in the next 12 months is in:

1. B2C (business to consumer) product companies (9.7%)
2. B2B (business to business) product companies (7%)
3. B2C services (6.3%)
4. B2B services (4.1%). Transportation and retail/wholesale companies expect to have double-digit growth (14.5% and 13.3% respectively)

Transportation and retail/wholesale companies expect to have double-digit growth (14.5% and 13.3% respectively). Smaller companies (<$500M in annual revenue) expect to increase marketing haires at a greater rate over the next year than larger companies.

Hiring opportunities exist in-house, in agencies and in marketing consultancies. Nearly 22% of social media activities are performed by outside agencies, and B2C product companies outsource almost 40% of this work.

Picking a company to work for

To assess the influence of marketing in a firm, marketers should check if it has a Chief Marketing Officer, and has marketers on the company board. The size of the marketing budget is also telling.

• Spending on the marketing department as a percent of the company's total budget is 10.8% on average.
• Spending for most law firms is 2.5% of gross revenues.
• B2C product companies have the highest marketing budget as a percent of the firm budget (17.2%).
• B2B product companies budget less than half that (8.5%).
• B2B services and B2C services budget in between the other two (9.6% and 11.6% respectively).
• The industries with the highest marketing budgets as a percentage of the firm budget are in communications, consumer services, and consumer goods. 

"Marketers should look for jobs in social media, mobile marketing, and marketing analytics—all areas of marketing with expected budget growth," write Christine Moorman and Lauren Kahn in a recent article. 

• Social media spending as a percentage of marketing budget has grown since August 2013 and grew more in the last year than any other survey year.
• Spending on mobile marketing is also rising and currently composes 9.4% of the marketing budget, up from 3.7% in February 2017. The percent of marketing budget spent on mobile is expected to increase to 18% on average in the next three years, with B2C services companies dedicating the highest portion of their marketing budget to mobile (26.1%).

Marketers can expect to lead activities related to the brand, digital marketing, advertising, social media, public relations and more. The specific skill that companies value in marketers is creativity, followed by a natural leadership ability.