Is Marketing Right for You?

Questions and self-assessments to help you decide whether marketing is the right career path.

You were in the cafeteria reviewing an assignment when it hit you. You have new goals and ambitions to pursue. After you're done, you plan to go out and take a second to look around and notice everything that you've been neglecting. That's when you start to wonder if this marketing path you're on is really what's right for you.

Asking questions

Can you really see yourself doing this as a career? Are you even going to be good at it? As you double- and triple-check your assignment due in an hour, you start to wonder: is this marketing education that you're pursuing what you want, or is it something you think you want? You're taking stock of how things are going in school, but more importantly, how you feel about it. Suddenly, questions like, “Is this really where I want to be?” start floating around in your head. You're not sure if something's driving you, but at times it feels like you have more questions than answers.

Self-assessment questions

One thing you can try is taking a career quiz assessment. You may have taken one before, but if not, there are various career quizzes available online to help you decide if the path you're on is right for you.

The Government of Canada's Job Bank website has a page dedicated to career quizzes and tests to help you understand what motivates you.

Career possibilities quizzes

There are plenty of quizzes to help you explore career possibilities:

1. 1. The first quiz explores your interests and the types of careers that would suit you.
2. 2. This quiz will help you determine your strengths and what you're good at.
3. 3. This quiz analyzes how you prefer to work with data, people, and things.
4. 4. The SchoolFinder career quiz asks lots of questions to narrow your interests.

Personality quizzes

There are also three personality tests to help you become more self-aware of what you're looking for:

1. 1. The first quiz is designed to help you determine how you think and understand.
2. 2. The second quiz helps you figure out how you learn, whether it's through seeing, listening, or hands-on experience.
3. 3. The final quiz helps you decide what you value the most at work.

The truth

After you hand in your paper, you walk across the campus and into one of the empty classrooms to think. You stare out the window and wonder if you are where you are meant to be. Is this the right program, or should you have taken something else instead? Can you really build a marketing career? Is this where you belong?

You remind yourself that no one can tell you how you're supposed to feel or if the career path you're on will lead to success or failure.

Doubt

As you walk through the halls and stop off at a coffee shop, you place your order, pay, and wait. You think about the positive things your professors have said about your work. You think about the advice you've received from others telling you to push yourself, think outside the box, be the best you can be — stuff like that. That type of advice has given you the strength to move forward even though you've doubted whether you're doing the right thing.

Just a path

As you walk through the halls, you wonder if you're pursuing marketing because you love it, or if it's because you don't know what else to do. You remind yourself that your career path isn't about right or wrong. It's just a path.

As you stop and take a minute to look around at your surroundings, you think about the challenges you have already faced and overcome, like late study nights and presentations you had to deliver. As you slip on your gloves, push the door open, and step outside, the cold wind makes you want to turn around and go back in.

Grey areas

But you're not going back in — even though it's cold, you're going to meet a friend. You know going left instead of right doesn't mean you made the wrong decision. It just means you made a choice. You're comforted by the idea that where you end up is probably where you're meant to be. You know if you're struggling with an assignment, you can reach out to a friend for help. If you are excelling but are lacking vision, you could ask your mentor, who happens to be a professor you can trust.

Walking down the street as your campus disappears behind you, you try to remember not to look at everything in right and wrong or black and white — because there are grey areas too. Ridley Scott, the film director, once said, “Life isn't black and white. It's a million grey areas, don't you find?”