Career change : Computer networks or Marketing ?

Question

I'm an electrical engineer working in the IT field ( computer networks ) have a chance to work in the marketing out of the networks career
Is it a good opportunity ?

Answer 1

Depends on what is your long term goal. Are you interested in building a career in IT or in marketing? Remember, marketing may look like challenging and interesting in the beginning, but requires lot of traveling and may not be suitable when you like to settle in a place and have kids and a family to take care. On the other side, there are enough opprotunities in computer networking that you can build a challending career. Try some certifications from CISCO on netowrking, do a PMP from PMI and you will certainly have some advantage in the market...

Answer 2

Marketing...do you have an avid interest to sell a product, idea, a way of living. Do you have the gift of gab and can charm the socks off of a lizard, are you an interesting, or a very descriptive and talented writer? These qualities will help considerably.

There are many facets to marketing - positioning, pricing, product, packaging, promotion, publicity/PR, advertising, and sales/distribution.

Then there are a few levels within each of those - setting objectives, planning (strategic and implementation), and tactics. And then there's the feedback loop from results back to each level. ("Were results sub-optimal because the strategy was wrong or because implementation was faulty?" or "Did we set an unrealistic objective for our budget and capabilities?" etc.)

There are also some variations across industries and product categories, so everything isn't quite so neat and clean as your question presumes. For example, marketing in an OEM situation is different than in a consumer or traditional B2B situation, commodities are different than proprietary/branded products, etc.

My suggestion is that you get/read a copy of "Kotler on Marketing" and read it cover-to-cover. Then get/read "Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind" and read it cover-to-cover. Either one of these books can be found at your public library. Then if you are still going to go for it, at least you'll have made a more informed decision.

You might indeed be best served by continuing your education by getting a Network Sales certification - Cisco is the industry standard. There are levels of certifications that you can obtain.

If you want to stay in IT Networking and face a REAL challenge, go for the CCIE - 74% of test takers don't succeed the first time. You really have to know networking cold to be able to pass this one, or be working in the field for a long time!
All the Cisco Certification paths are as follows...
http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/le3/learning_career_certifications_and_learning_paths_home.html

Wishing you the very best!

Answer 3

How about Network Marketing? Building a distribution network to help you market a product.

Find a company you like.

I am in MLM and I stay home most of the time. I work 15 to 20 hours a week and it has replaced my corporate income. Have been doing it for 4.5 years already.

Answer 4

I think that the home automation is the emerging field and it will have a greater scope in future. Networking is a very common field as compare to the home automation thus I would like to suggest you the field of home automation. You can start a decent career at intraHouse.

Answer 5

It depends if you are a people person. Marketing can be lucrative but requires a lot of people contact..