I got my Bachelors in Business Admin and my major was Marketing with an emphasis in Advertising (yes, I’m now a teacher but that’s a long story).
From my experience,
New grads that major in Marketing usually go in one of two directions:
A.) They go to work in a marketing department for a company, making $18K a year to start, and if they stick with it and “pay their dues” they end up with a “kick you-know-what” job when they’re at leaste 35, making over six figures a year. They analyze data showing who buys what, why, how, when etc. – i.e. studying the “market” for whatever industry you’re in. Watch Big with Tom Hanks.
B.) They get a job in Sales as an Outside Sales Rep, making $50—$100 a year to start (based on commission and bonuses). They are a direct contact between the customer and their company. They present products, shmooze existing clients, think of new ways to sell to new clients, and many other tasks. Watch the original Wall Street with Charlie Sheen.
In the Advertising field you can go one of three ways:
A.) Media Department – buying media for Advertisers. (Many have marketing and advertising degrees)…kind of boring…no movie reference here. :)
B.) Creative Department – creating the advertising, i.e. coming up with ads, slogans, whole advertising campaigns, etc. Watch Boomerang with Eddy Murphy
C.) Account Management – dealing with the clients and walking them through the process of advertising their product with the Ad Agency. This one takes a long time to work up to, but highly lucrative, most start out with low pay, but you just work your way up. Watch Picture Perfect with Jennifer Anniston.
Public Relations is a broad term, and it’s a job title that can have many different job descriptions – all of course have to do with…. well, building a relationship with the public.