By now you’ve probably heard the hype – digital marketing skills are in serious demand and the digital skills gap is set to widen, the job market is booming (and quite frankly bursting at the seams) and brands are putting more of a focus on digital marketing than ever before. Bigger budgets, increased pay and more career choice are just some of the benefits digital marketing professionals can look forward to this year and beyond.

Debating over whether to change career direction or what to study next? You might want to discover the four big digital marketing benefits first. They’re good, we promise.

You’ve heard of the digital skills gap, right? There’s 150,000 digital jobs predicted by 2020 and not enough digital professionals to fill them. This provides those studying digital marketing with a unique competitive advantage – you’re gearing yourself up for a career where demand exceeds supply. Always a good move.

During the recession recent graduates were plunged into a world of uncertainty, job scarcity and all around terribleness. Wouldn’t it be nice to gain a fresh set of skills that could future-proof your career, increase your job security and even enhance your career progression?

The most important thing for you is that you need to take back control of your career and reestablish the confidence you lost during the recession. Remember this: companies still want your valuable skills – you might just need to turn them digital. According to Mondo demand for digital marketing professionals will rise by 38% this year. It’s time you took advantage.

Top Tip:

Before you embark on your digital marketing career find out what the most in-demand digital marketing skills for 2015 are.

The headquarters of many of the world’s leading digital giants like Google, LinkedIn and Twitter are located in Dublin, providing a wealth of job opportunities for digital professionals to choose from. Rarely a week goes by without a new onslaught of digital jobs announced for multinationals, national brands and even SMEs.

For example, this year Ryanair created 200 digital jobs, many of which were digital marketing positions. At the Web Summit Taoiseach Enda Kenny also announced 400 new digital jobs across a range of digital marketing roles, including social media. What’s more, LinkedIn is soon set to double its workforce to 1200 staff and Microsoft plan to hire 100 more digital graduates.

With such a wide array of new opportunities available digital marketers can afford to get picky about the type of company they’d like to work for. We’d encourage you to take advantage of this choice and think of what kind of business best suits your career needs.

Consider These Sectors:

According to the 2014 Marketing Salary survey and Alternatives the top five areas recruiting for digital marketing positions this year are Foreign Direct Investment, FMCG, Agency, Utilities financial services (and after an absence of several years).

We’ve already talked about how demand for digital marketing professionals is exceeding supply. In traditional economics we all know what happens next – the value of the product increases along with the price. When you’re working in a fruitful industry with a large skills shortage you can think of yourself like a commodity – and negotiate your salary accordingly.

A recent survey by Prosperity found that digital salaries are rising faster in 2014 than in the previous five years. What’s more, the pace of growth is set to fasten. For example, the average salary for a digital marketing manager in Dublin is €68,00. And it’s not just managerial level digital marketing positions experiencing a salary surge – entry level PPC positions have jumped from €25,000 last year to €28,000 this year.

The 2014 Marketing Salary survey and Alternatives confirmed the positive findings. The survey revealed quite a few exciting advancements for digital marketing professionals. Here are our favorites: 50% of respondents received a salary increase this year, two-thirds received bonuses and 61% said their businesses are hiring again.

Exciting Video:

Your digital skills are in demand further afield too. This inspiring video by Mondo highlights the key skills American businesses are seeking and the salaries you can expect to earn:

In more traditional careers like advertising you’d have to wait for a coveted internship or graduate placement to open up so you can gain experience and create your own portfolio. The digital marketing world, however, provides a host of opportunities for you to kickstart your own career before you even set foot in a workplace.

Want to to stand out to potential employers? Invest in building a powerful social media presence, gain your own Twitter followers, start your own blog and contribute to relevant online conversations.There are a whole host of online exams like the Google Analytics exam and HubSpot’s Inbound Certification exam you can take to boost your CV and showcase your digital marketing knowledge.

There have been plenty of examples of people who have been hired after showcasing their talent and abilities through social media. For example, Dublin based fashion illustrator, Holly Shortall got noticed when she tweeted her illustrations to celebrities online. A number of of glossy magazines and top fashion brands then approached her and commissioned her work.

If you’re looking to break into the digital marketing industry, there’s no better time than now. According to the government, the digital economy is growing 10 times faster than the traditional economy which will result in a skills gap of 900,000 vacancies by 2015.

We’ve compiled our top tips for aspiring digital marketers who wish to kick-start their career today.

The digital marketing industry is both fast growing and incredibly competitive. It’s easy for businesses to differentiate between candidates who have the willingness to learn, and who are along for the ride. This industry requires passion and a desire to succeed.

You need to keep on top of industry news by following major digital marketing sites and influential people on social media. As the major players such as Google, Facebook and Twitter regularly tweak their paid advertising platforms and algorithms, you’re in for a wild ride if you don’t keep on top of the latest changes.

Here’s some recommendations on websites to get started –

SEO – Moz, Distilled, SEOGadget, Search Engine Land

PPC – PPC Hero, Search Engine Land

Social Media – Social Media Examiner, Social Media Today

Content – Hubspot

Surround yourself with people more talented than yourself. The people you meet will be your ongoing support network when you run into problems, as well as help to open doors to opportunities you might not have otherwise found.

Attend industry meetups and conferences in your area to nurture relationships with other digital marketers and enhance your skill set through in-depth workshops and presentations.

Try out your own ideas and don’t just treat industry leaders’ opinions as gospel. Everything isn’t always black and white in the digital marketing industry with many grey areas between best practice and what can actually get results for a business.

Every digital marketer should have personal projects to test out theories, try their hand at multiple disciplines (SEO, PPC, Social Media, Content Marketing etc.) and be able to take accountability for the success or failure of a project.

Digital marketers needs to be comfortable with acronyms such as PPC, SEM and SEO. They are all very different terms with a misunderstanding of them being a clear sign that you have a beginner’s skill set and need further training. The ability to analyse digital marketing campaigns and understand what elements worked or not is dependent on your ability to understand industry jargon.

Fancy yourself as a digital marketing hotshot but you have no visible online presence? If you want to show to an employer that you can build their company’s visibility then you need to show that you can firstly build your own personal brand.

A strong online presence could potentially be the deciding factor between two candidates who have applied for the same position.

As a term commonly used by Rand Fishkin of Moz, it refers to having a basic understanding of multiple marketing disciplines but specialising in one or two particular skills.

It’s not uncommon for companies to find candidates with a broad digital marketing skill set to be a valuable asset as there’s considerable cross over between the different channels. It will also make you better equipped for choosing a more specific path of focus that you can specialie in.

Digital marketing can often be perceived to be quite glamorous, but truth be told it’s often more technical and data driven then we would care to admit. You won’t be developing websites from scratch but you will be communicating your marketing strategy to a team of developers or designers who have a responsibility for incorporating your recommendations.

A basic knowledge of HTML and graphic design would help to make you stand out among the less technically minded candidates.

Do you know your CPC from your CPA? If you want to set yourself apart in an interview, talk about the return on ad spend for a campaign you’ve run yourself. It’s easy to talk about an exciting creative concept you’ve helped to develop but the fact remains…money talks.

You really need to understand how each marketing channel has performed and what the key learnings have been.

If you really want to stand out from your peers in the industry, completing a certified digital marketing course will help. One of the issues facing the digital marketing industry is that there are no barriers to entry, meaning that anyone with a loose grasp of industry terminology can potentially get a position in a company.

As this industry matures, recruiters are becoming more savvy about what differentiates a candidate that can talk the talk, but maybe will be a costly mistake for the company.