DMA Insight: Attracting Data and Marketing Apprentices

On behalf of DMA Talent, we conducted research to better understand the opportunities that the data and marketing industry can offer fresh talent.

DMA Talent’s mission is to attract a new generation of fresh thinkers by raising awareness of the range of dynamic career opportunities available in our industry.

After a brief review of where and how organisations communicate their entry-level opportunities, this infographic will dig into the use of a specific recruitment strategy: apprenticeship programmes.

In particular, the data will reflect the difference between large/very large and small/medium businesses – when we refer to large/very large businesses, we mean companies with more than 250 employees.

Recruitment: Where to look for the opportunity

Employers are using a wide range of recruitment techniques to access entry level talent.

The most widespread recruitment strategies remain simple and low cost, such as personal/employee networks (62%) or their company website (45%). Moreover, 41% use advertising on third party sites and 41% use relationships with education providers.

Employers are less keen on using recruitment agencies (36%) or LinkedIn (35%).

The open question for both the industry and education providers is how can they support employers in accessing diverse talent outside of their own networks in cost effective ways?

Apprenticeships opportunities

Data reveals that within the analysed industry sample, 62% of the employers are already using apprenticeships, and a further 32% would be interested in using one.

We found that almost 8 out of 10 large/very large businesses (78%) use apprenticeships, with an additional 19% that would consider the opportunity. Only 3% of these businesses don’t use apprenticeships and won’t consider them in the future.

On the other hand, within small/medium businesses only 4 in 10 businesses (41%) use apprenticeships. Currently, 48% haven’t got any apprentices, but are willing to consider this opportunity in the future. Finally, 11% don’t and won’t use this recruitment strategy.

The results suggest a strong current and latent appetite for apprenticeships roles among employers when hiring for entry level roles, among larger businesses.

What happens at the end of an apprenticeship?

The number of large/very large businesses that said they are very satisfied with their apprenticeships was significantly higher (46%) compared to this same figure for small/medium businesses (39%).

In general, among those using apprenticeships, only a small minority stated that they don’t lead to further employment.

In other words, apprenticeships do cover an important role for young people to gain full time employment in the data and marketing industry.

In particular, large/very large businesses’ apprenticeships turn into permanent roles when related to ‘Data Analysis’ (36%), ‘Content/Creative’ (36%) and ‘Data-driven technical’ (36%) jobs.

In small/medium businesses, apprenticeships in ‘Data-driven technical’ areas (42%) have more chance to become long-term job opportunities for entry-level talent.

To learn more about entry level opportunities within our industry, take a look at our report:

Data and Marketing: Attracting the Next Generation