[Chrysalis]

	Originally Posted by Tocsin To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	When you consider the natural skills of a good con artist that goes into being a success in marketing, combined with the ability to hedge on responsibilities and quibble over details that makes a good lawyer it seems like the natural inclination of someone with an interest in both would find its best expression in a career in politics.

You're absolutely right about that. Sadly somebody of that type has just been elected into the White House.
Perhaps we should start claiming the oposite all over the internets, so that less people like that are inspired to enter the field of politics!


Chrysalis added to this post, 4 minutes and 37 seconds later...

	Originally Posted by amusination To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	There's always people like me who go through the archives. To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. This topic was very interesting and helpful to me! I'm also trying to figure out my career plans...

I'm glad you find this all interesting! Nevertheless I would severely question the "INTJness" of anyone considering a career in marketing!
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[thod]

When I left university I was ambitious like you INTJ's. I went through a very competitive procedure and got a job in marketing with one of the big FMCG companies.

Stupid ideal job quiz was wrong. I only lasted 6 months. Marketing is for extroverts, its all showmanship and backstabbing. There is no real substance to the subject to get your teeth into. As an INTP amongst all those floozy extroverts I was the odd man out. Plotting how much increased sales on a coupon offer to evaluate its effectiveness on the computer is not the done thing when you should be networking to do a deal and building your contact list.

[Astra]

	Originally Posted by thod To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	When I left university I was ambitious like you INTJ's. I went through a very competitive procedure and got a job in marketing with one of the big FMCG companies. Stupid ideal job quiz was wrong. I only lasted 6 months. Marketing is for extroverts, its all showmanship and backstabbing.

Or possibly it's big FMCG companies that are for extroverts? The assessment-day recruitment procedure seems pretty much designed to weed out introverts, who'll be visibly flagging around lunchtime from having to talk so much.

[amusination]

	Originally Posted by Chrysalis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Nevertheless I would severely question the "INTJness" of anyone considering a career in marketing! To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

Woo, I revived the thread! I would agree with you on that, but it seems like there are some aspects of marketing where an INTJs talents would come in handy. It would have to be the right setting, and also marketing specific things/ideas. I've read that INTJs like to argue, just for argument's sake (because it's fun to debate!). It seems like one could apply this to standing behind a product... but... I'm not sure it could really go on long term if you just didn't really care about the product/service/idea.

Yeah, probably not for me. I do think marketing is interesting, though. Perhaps a career that somehow incorporated knowledge of it would be better.

*brainstorm*

[smashy]

Regarding Marketing, there are several different types of jobs in this field, some are very people facing oriented, where you have to do presentations, convince people, etc, but there are others that are more "backstage", like writting copy, market research and others. I advise you to research more about Marketing.

I work in Direct Marketing, I have to develop strategies for customer attraction and retention but most of the time I´m using my writing skills. I research, analyse the competition, came up with new ideas and communication channels, I do post-campaign analysis, using my critical thinking and develop new strategies. I have to know my target customers very well in order to reach them and bring them to our events (I work in an events company).

I simply LOVE Marketing, I can´t see myself doing anything else. I love having brainstorming sessions with colleagues but then return to my independent work. I find my work challenging and stimulating and I don´t agree with people that say Marketing is not for INTJ´s. I think Sales is not for INTJ´s, not Marketing. I worked in customer facing sales before and absolutely hated it, but I like to influence people and my work now is a way to influence people without having to convince them face-to-face of something.

[amusination]

Smashy, I like the sound of what you described! Thanks for commenting. I like important behind-the-scenes work much, much better than presenting and high-stakes interaction. I'll look into it some more.
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[aydin4ik]

Hardcore INTJ here.
At the third year of my Business Administration studies I was seriously thinking of a career in marketing, because I had shelves of books on marketing and I had memorized the art of Philip Kottler
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But by the time I graduated, things changed a lot and I was more attracted to law. Now I am a combination of the two - a Tax Consultant!

It is worth looking not only at the big names like "Law", "Marketing", etc., but also narrow specialization in these fields. Max T gave
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. As for possible paths for a lawyer, examples could be:

Court lawyers or litigators specialize in court trials. They conduct the research and administration surrounding the particular cases and handle the client's trial.
Environmental lawyers handle cases and issues regarding pollution, environmental disputes, license applications, and compliance with environmental regulations. The construction or mining firms are typical clients.
Intellectual property law lawyers handle copyright issues, trademark protection, patent applications, program rights, and intellectual property disputes.
Family law practitioners focus on issues of family welfare, child custody, abuse, and more.
Corporate lawyers are well acquainted with commercial laws. They represent firms in disputes, handle their contracts, and advice them on course of actions to be taken.
Divorce lawyers handle custody, divorce proceedings, and settlement issues.
Labor lawyers handle proceedings of labor and conditions of employment contracts, disputes and trials. Their clients can either be disgruntled workers, unions, or companies.
Property lawyers handle contracts, and work with title deeds, and the transfer of property. Their clients include property buyers, sellers, and agents.

Source:
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As Warren Buffett said, if you want to be successful, you have to be doing what you like doing. So the main question is - what do you like doing? Try to answer that first.

[Maja]

Originally Posted by Max T To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

But, the areas of marketing an INTJ might find fascinating are: new product development branding pricing advertising marketing strategy- positioning and targeting campaign planning and project management product/ category management market research. NT rationals generally excel in these. First, creativity rules Secondly, the whole purpose to marketing is differentiation- make the product/ service different to rivals and that customers desire. There are no rules- real kick arse marketers define the rules that customers use to determine good value (rules that make rivals obsolete too). Increasingly, marketing is becoming analytical as well as creative. And INTJs are considered to be strategists, right? Marketing is diverse too- it engages with operations, incorporates psychology for customer understanding, mathematics with price elasticities etc., economics with supply and demand as well as the latest technologies (online, marketing software etc.)

What a FANTASTIC post, Max!

All he says is true. I've been in marketing in the past and have a father in marketing. We found ourselves there for the above reasons. (BTW - Marketing is listed as an INTJ career.) It deals with a myriad of ideas. Don't trust the stereotypes of the salesman or pageant winner. It all depends on what job under the communications banner you end up with -- like someone said, there are tons.

Wondering about a law career? Try history. History is often the gateway study to law school. If you don't like those elements by then, well, you've already gotten a degree that can serve you in something similar. If you do, you're ready for law school (as far as most schools are concerned). I'm a trained historian and worked quite a few history oriented jobs. I can tell you from experience it is similar mental work. I had a friend who went from history school, to a law job, back to history school. The work was so similar people on both sides of the pond applied it to themselves. In other news: A few years ago, history training was beginning to be considered as the "new MBA." It serves a lot of purposes.


PS -- It's my personal opinion that you should never try and craft your career based on a personality sorter. This seems to come up a lot on these threads. Trust your experience and instincts while keeping your options as open as you can. Your mind will find its own way.





Maja added to this post, 30 minutes and 4 seconds later...

	Originally Posted by Astra To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Or possibly it's big FMCG companies that are for extroverts? The assessment-day recruitment procedure seems pretty much designed to weed out introverts, who'll be visibly flagging around lunchtime from having to talk so much.

Originally Posted by thod To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

When I left university I was ambitious like you INTJ's. I went through a very competitive procedure and got a job in marketing with one of the big FMCG companies. Stupid ideal job quiz was wrong. I only lasted 6 months. Marketing is for extroverts, its all showmanship and backstabbing. There is no real substance to the subject to get your teeth into. As an INTP amongst all those floozy extroverts I was the odd man out. Plotting how much increased sales on a coupon offer to evaluate its effectiveness on the computer is not the done thing when you should be networking to do a deal and building your contact list.

I'm sorry that happened to you.
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That sort of stuff can be really painful. However, what Astra gave is a good point. That sounds like a pretty niche area to me. Having another type of marketing job somewhere else could be entirely different. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. What you described is nothing like any marketing job I've experienced, just because my interests haven't led me in those areas. Now...production, sales...sometimes I might characterize those branches that way. Which can also be considered marketing. Every career area has different branches.

This is why I say don't trust quizzes -- they have no way of letting you know that whether or not you like your job relies almost entirely on whether you're working for the right employer in the right place, NOT on your general umbrella. Especially when they say something almost retarded in its generality like "be a marketer" or "be a farmer." That's like saying, "I divine you should...work inside!" Or, "I divine...you should work...outside!"

Yeah thanks for nothing!! ::chortle::

[smashy]

	Originally Posted by amusination To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	Smashy, I like the sound of what you described! Thanks for commenting. I like important behind-the-scenes work much, much better than presenting and high-stakes interaction. I'll look into it some more. To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

A great part of what I like in my job is that I still interact with people, but through writing. Through emails, I also do a lot of copy writing for brochures, leaflets, press releases, magazines, etc. But I let sales people do all the face-to-face!!
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The only time I interact face-to-face is at the events, when I meet the people visiting the events, people I spoke a lot through emails and it´s kinda interesting meeting them face-to-face to actually know the person and I feel I already know them when I´m meeting personally because we emailed so much before, and that helps breaking the ice. But I never talk more then 5 minutes with anyone at the events, so, it´s ok for me. But, of course, I work in the events industry, in another type of industries you´re always behind the scenes and never meet your customers/clients face-to-face.

[Chrysalis]

How about the argument that marketing does not produce anything which is not disposable in the end? I can see a lot of smoke and mirrors but nothing that drives human progress or serves humankind like the sciences or technical stuff. In my eyes this is the main drawback of working in this field. This point looks even more important to me than the whole introversion vs extroversion question.

Does anyone agree?

[smashy]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

How about the argument that marketing does not produce anything which is not disposable in the end? I can see a lot of smoke and mirrors but nothing that drives human progress or serves humankind like the sciences or technical stuff. In my eyes this is the main drawback of working in this field. This point looks even more important to me than the whole introversion vs extroversion question. Does anyone agree?

Well, marketing helps selling the products/services. What´s the purpose of for example developing an iphone with all the technology and technical stuff related if then it´s not advertised correctly to the right people? It would be hanging in the shelfs in some dirty warehouse with no one using it.

It´s what Marketing does, connects the right products/services with the right people, using the right channels. It seems pretty useful to me.

[Max T]

This is a wind-up by Chrysalis but the bait is tempting...

	Originally Posted by Chrysalis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	How about the argument that marketing does not produce anything which is not disposable in the end? I can see a lot of smoke and mirrors...

Consider how long a company would retain a customer that it deceived with "smoke and mirrors"... and the damage the customer could bring via bad mouthing.
And think of the trouble the business would get into with the authorities... and with its shareholders... and with staff resignations.
So lets ignore smoke and mirrors.

	Originally Posted by Chrysalis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	[Marketing offers] nothing that drives human progress or serves humankind like the sciences or technical stuff. In my eyes this is the main drawback of working in this field.

If we align 'technical stuff/ sciences/ human advances' along a power law curve:
- A few major discoveries per 100 years - e.g. Thermodynamic laws,
- Hundreds of key inventions per 100 years - e.g. Photocopier,
- Millions of incremental advances per 100 yrs - e.g. iPod.

Marketing has nothing to do with the huge discoveries (only a fraction of society does), but has a lot of input into the key inventions and everything to do with the incremental advances.
Because at the point down the power curve where government funding dries up, that is the moment when customer demand decides whether the advancement will fail or not.

So marketers research the market demand, assist with feasibility number crunching, ensure the right attributes are incorporated, aid in design and decide how to position the advancement in the buyer's mind etc. etc.

Research and Development departments are increasingly joining Marketing to their hip.
This reduces the failure-rate that 'sciences' are renowned for, as the developer never stepped out of their heads to consider who will buy the fabled "$1m laser mousetrap".



Maja and Smashy- I guess we have to tolerate other's oversimplification of the sheer depth and breadth of marketing.

Introvertguy and aydin4ik- great posts on law. It must amount to more than bickering in court rooms on day-time TV shows...

[Maja]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.

How about the argument that marketing does not produce anything which is not disposable in the end? I can see a lot of smoke and mirrors but nothing that drives human progress or serves humankind like the sciences or technical stuff. In my eyes this is the main drawback of working in this field. This point looks even more important to me than the whole introversion vs extroversion question. Does anyone agree?

I suppose you're just pulling our chains, right?
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heheh

Everything's disposable in the end. Everyone dies. Dust in the wind, what was I saving my money for and all that.

Products need to get to the public for the public to have a concept of what sort of progress is possible. If you don't ask the right questions you never get the right answers, but how do you know what questions to ask? Products! At least in the society we have crafted right now, and I don't mean that in a negative manner.

We don't sit around and hypothesize all day to our youth. They have books, educational toys. Products. In a way, even education is a product. Someone needs to be an educational representative, and in a sense, that's the same as some jobs selling toothpaste or researching the newest Speedpad. That's not a bad thing. We've recently gone through two revolutions based on tool making that forever changed the way we interact with each other and society: the Industrial Revolution and the Information Revolution. Tools, what man is at the top of the food chain for being able to make and what we use to synchronize and develop our evolution, are products!
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As sure as your iPod. The iPod might have a different use than a screwdriver, but they're still tools.

Life.
Do people learn about artificial life from think tanks? NASA? No. Not directly anyhow. They learn about it from BIObugs, or a PC game, or a Tamagotchi. By seeing the difference between a robot and a real person, they can further their inquiries on the nature of life, the soul, or robotics. Or math. Or programming. Depending on the kid (and if you don't think kids think these things, they do.) It's a million times faster than a person trying to answer, "Why is not alive, not alive?"

Kindness. Efficiency.
A team activity which uses a whole list of products can teach people the innate usefulness of working with others and sharing. You don't have to explain why it works or how it can be useful. They see it happening. Even if this were 1928 and I were talking about friends, family, and employees working a farm, it would still be with products.

Self Confidence.
Marketers have written succinct, insightful books, all about how people can make things work between other people, in business, and how they can escape devastating errors. They've learned this through their jobs. Because of their matter of fact observation, all this is written in a no frills no nonsense manner that doesn't resemble a self help book.

A Prosthetic Arm.
All that R&D costs money, and it can't be for nothing. Even something like a medical appliance is a product to be sold on the open market. In order to make sure it's right and it sells, marketers have to be involved on various levels. They can also be involved in whether the development stays ethical and whether the right people get the arm to begin with.


To be funny, I guess you could picture two cavemen poking a dead elk with two different sticks. One keeps cutting himself. The other realizes that one guy is cutting himself on one stick and the other isn't with the other stick. He shows this to his fellows. He is baffled! The first caveman realizes what's going on once discovery cave man illustrates his findings. Now, cavemen one runs around explaining to everyone why they need to use this second stick. Result is more elk for all, less cavemen die of gangrene.

That's really oversimplified but that was supposed to be funny. In that example, the caveguy wasn't selling anything, but he made it useful to everyone else, even though it already existed and he wasn't the one to discover it. If it were in 1997 he wouldn't have to run around and tell the other cavedudes, but you know...

I've been awake now for at least 24 hours so... That was off the top of my head. I'm out.

[smashy]

Just like to add to the two posts above (really interesting and true) that regarding Charities, for example, is the Marketing that fundraises all the money for the charity. At cancer research charities, for example, it is Direct Marketing that develops initiatives, events, ideas, to bring money that will finance the cancer research. In another charities, they raise money to help people that starve, others that don´t have a home, children that suffer at home, etc, etc.

I work in events, conferences and trade exhibitions. My job is to attract the right visitors to those events. Some of them are technology related, and isn´t that wonderful that a lot of people from across the world can meet at one place and share their knowledge about their work?

So as you know, Marketing is not an evil thing that tries to sell you potatos but in reality wants your soul. It can be a way of making the world a better one as well.

[Tishy]

I've worked in Business Development in Legal Firms, and in BD or marketing in a number of other companies.

The most frustrating thing about Marketing is the politics... doing things you -know- won't be as effective as they could because of some fat, nong on the Board whose wanting to put in his 'two cents'.

ARGH!

Dealing with idiots is a danger in many fields, but niether marketing nor law will save you from this.