It’s time to continue our #PandaPounds focus on career progression within ecommerce. In part 1, we revealed 312 of our respondents deemed the ‘opportunity to progress’ as important or essential when looking for a new role.
But is progression something a current or potential new employer can offer alone? Furthermore, with expectations of growth for the ecommerce industry, can people expect progression opportunities to increase? Let’s look into this…
To give a bit of insight into our respondent’s current situations, here’s a rundown of how long they have been in their current roles. It’s interesting to know exactly how long they have been in their roles alongside their overall thoughts on career progression.
Progress has to be earned, through hard work and determination to succeed. But it is possible for professionals to take the quest for progression into their own hands, through networking, public speaking and general personal brand building.
Of course not everybody is active in their network because they are looking for a new role or the right person who can help them make that next step up. But how many ecommerce professionals are building their brand with career progression in mind?
41% of our respondents use personal branding opportunities to find a new job, seemingly sooner rather than later. 57%, while not eager to find a new job immediately, use personal branding with future prospects in mind. Of course future prospects are not limited only to finding a step up in your career, but it still shows that ecommerce professionals like to think forward.
It’s promising to see a good number of respondents realising there is more to career progression than what happens in the office. Getting out and about, be it on social channels or networking events, is a great way to build relationships that can lead to so much more.
We had many reasons why our respondents like to build their personal brands, so note that the graphic only depicts the percentage of respondents who chose these two options as one of their reasons. Many of our respondents had more than one reason for personal branding, something we are going to look at in much more detail in our #PandaPounds features. (You can now read our feature on Personal Branding for Ecommerce professionals!)
We asked our survey respondents their growth expectations for their company staff levels, and the ecommerce job market as a whole. It’s a great insight to how they see the industry itself progressing which of course opens more doors for them than ever before. Here’s what they thought…
There you have it…just over 60% of our respondents believe their company staff levels will grow, be it in all areas of the company or just the ecommerce team.
What about growth in the ecommerce job market? It’s more competitive than ever, as shown by the most in demand skills; wider channel specific skills such as PPC or SEO, advanced analytical skills, management skills and commercial understanding to name but a few.
Despite this, it’s amazing to see that 87% of our respondents believe the job market for ecommerce is growing. Perhaps this is why progression is still important to ecommerce superstars, as they know there are more opportunities for them in the years to come. After all, who wouldn’t want to progress in a booming industry?
That concludes our focus on progression and ecommerce professionals. Don’t miss out on any #PandaPounds updates, which you can find on our blog page. For a FREE copy of the full report, all you have to do is download it right here.