It's almost a month since I completed the CIM exam hell that was the Marketing Management in Practice (MMiP) exam and to be quite frank - I never want to put myself through such abject horror ever again!
Having not done a 3 hour exam for 10 whole years (yes, I know my "youthful" appearance often fools others to think that I am in fact a Gen Y product of the 80s and not a Gen X product of the 70s) - the sheer vision of that exam hall was enough to bring me out in a cold sweat. Having to fit studying in and around everyday life is anything but a walk in the park; I longed for my lengthy days I had as a student - when in my final year I was only required to attend 6 hours of lectures a week! The lead up to the dreaded exam resulted in my choosing to end my contract role which was due to go perm** to concentrate on revision. I found myself pacing my roof terrace recounting Mintzberg's 10 roles of management, committing to memory diagrams that illustrated the make-up of a Matrix organisation and attempting to invent acronyms for project management theory (Programme Evaluation Review Techniques is shortened to PERT - which is juvenile enough for me to remember without any worries!) I reverted back to my 21 year old self who was frantically cramming Marx, Rousseau, and Freud - a question of modernity (I read History at SSEES - a specialist department within UCL) - and yet again I am questioning the relevance of what I was learning and how will it enrich my life?
I still remember a lot from my university days; I am fascinated with the arts and I am envious of my younger brother who is reading English Literature at Dublin's Trinity College. I have a genuine personal interest in history, politics, philosophy and I love reading - so the efforts made when I was a student were not only to get a degree - but also to feed my interest in these topics. In all honesty, my degree didn't really help me in my career, it demonstrated my level of intelligence and having graduated 10 years ago the "value" of a degree seemed a lot higher than it does today - probably as not everyone was encouraged to go to university when I was studying my A-Levels as they are today. It seems that almost anyone can go to university nowadays (a legacy of the former Labour government perhaps), and almost all 16 - 18 year olds are expected to apply which I personally think is wrong - academia isn't for everyone and as reports today show, competition for graduate jobs is ridiculously high with 270 students applying of every graduate job. I feel we are doing our youngsters a disservice by telling them to get a degree and then your career is sorted. What they will discover however is that if they really want to progress their career then graduation does not mark the end of your studies - if anything it is a doorway into further studying for a "professional qualification".
My main motivation for studying my CIM was to provide some gravitas for my career and to help combat the double-edged sword of having a fabulous career, and then suddenly realising that your twenties don't last forever, they whizz by and suddenly I'm in my thirties and I need to get a move-on in developing my career and working out when to have babies!!! Being qualified in my profession demonstrates to the outside world that I have the skills to be a competent and talented marketer, and yes - I hope to have the CIM stamp of approval by 27th August - fingers crossed! However, a lot of what CIM students learn is not put in to practice and this is what is so frustrating. How many organisations conduct a macro marketing audit consisting of a PESTLE analysis and a Porter's 5 Forces analysis? How many organisations in practice conduct an "honest" SWOT analysis and then act on its findings - particularly if under weaknesses the key internal stakeholders were shown to be hindering advancement by a reluctance to react to market conditions, or were not planning and expecting employees to react to demands at the eleventh hour? When I recounted what was required in the exam with reference to producing a marketing plan for the compulsory question based on the case study to an ex-colleague, she didn't have a clue what I meant when referring to a PESTLE analysis or Porter's 5 Forces, yet she is IDM qualified and is very talented with proven success throughout her career.
In reality the profession does not practice what it preaches, so what needs to change? Does industry need to start implementing what I and many other students have learnt, or does the CIM need to adjust its teaching? The syllabus has recently changed which is a good thing - teaching students project management is a vital skill and I am pleased to see that the CIM is agile enough to react to industry demands - but seriously - do Marketers really need to commit to memory Mintzberg's managerial roles? Wouldn't CIM students be better off learning how to manage the relationship with the Sales Director who doesn't see the benefit of brand engagement, or how to get the buy-in of the CEO who has trust issues and thinks he /she knows how to write better copy than them? I'm not sure what needs to happen - but what I do know is that I will not be required to detail the complexities of a Matrix organisation or Charles Handy's different models of organisational culture ever again - unless it comes up in a pub quiz or my fears come true and I am required to re-sit my exam - fingers crossed it will be the former and not the latter.
** Revision was one reason, there's a whole other blog post regarding employer branding and employee engagement, but I shalln't go into that right now!
