A Career in Sales & Marketing in Canada

Sales and marketing representatives can work in almost all industries and as a result, career choices are endless. Canada's Best Careers Guide suggests, "To those who are alert, career prospects in Canada in the early 21st century are dazzling! Never before have there been so many different job and career opportunities; an enormous variety of fascinating options for you to choose from."

Reported to be Canada's leading business futurist, author Frank Feather advises that the best career prospects are found by analyzing global, national and provincial trends.

His list of growth industries includes: information and high-technology; business services including computers; personal services including financial and medical; leisure, tourism, recreation and entertainment; plastics, ceramics and new materials; robotics and all outer-space industries; hydro and solar electricity; mass/urban transit and aircraft/airports; biotech farming and aquaculture; and environmental restoration.

A sales or marketing career hitched to one of these industries has an excellent chance of success.

Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC) shows that recent unemployment rates and earnings in sales and marketing occupations have been more favorable than for the economy as a whole. Except for insurance and real estate sales, these occupations were not very sensitive to overall economic conditions. Statistics showed that the separation rate in sales and marketing is low, indicating that workers tend not to lose or leave these jobs.

Business service professionals, including those in marketing, earned well above average for Canadians. Sales, marketing and advertising manager earnings were among the highest for occupations in sales and service. Insurance and real estate sales occupations earnings were also higher than average, although some sales and related occupations showed below average earnings.

Statistics showed that youth (those under 29 years of age) made up a significant portion of new hires in many sales and marketing occupations, with about half the new wholesale sales representatives being under 29. Almost 40 percent of new insurance and real estate sales representative were below 30. Business service professions showed a much lower percentage of youth in new hires -- less than 16 percent in some areas and only 25 percent for marketing researchers and economic development officers.

Indications from HRDC are that familiarity with desktop publishing and database technologies will be important for these occupations due to the development of electronic forms of sales and marketing through the Internet. "Increasing use of computer-based technologies will affect the work and skill requirements for persons employed in all of these occupations."

HRDC noted that rapid technological change means that those working in wholesale sales must stay abreast of the ever-changing product lines available on the market.

Free trade and the increasing use of information technology will likely increase opportunities in sales and marketing, while government spending restraint and restructuring in the financial sector will have the opposite effect according to HRDC.

"Marketing researchers and economic development officers with a strong understanding of other economies and of international trade and investment issues are likely to have the most success."