Professional selling is often the best, and sometimes the ONLY, path leading into a company's marketing department. They feel this is the best way for a new employee to learn about the firm's products and customers intimately. Market research is becoming more and more important as firms strive to better understand the needs of their customers. Opportunities exist for marketing graduates in this area within companies and with outside consultants. Graduates with strong quantitative and computer skills will be most successful in this area, as market research professionals rely heavily on statistical and analytic methods.
Retailing continues to be an area attractive to many marketing graduates.
The retail industry has become quite sophisticated in recent years, and salaries of retail managers in many businesses have increased dramatically.