Introducing Professional and Career Development Skills in the Marketing Curriculum

According to recent studies in academic journals, business practitioners have expressed the view that marketing graduates lack certain professional and career skills. In addition, informal discussions with campus recruiters have suggested that their experience is very similar. This exploratory study reports the results of a survey of the perceptions of marketing practitioners and educators concerning the need to incorporate the development of professional and career development skills into the marketing curriculum. The results of this study indicate marketing graduates may not have many important managerial skills necessary to begin a successful career in marketing. Practitioners and educators agree that marketing departments should consider teaching professional and career development skills either as a separate class or by integrating them into existing marketing classes.