A breeding ground for tomorrow’s marketing technologists
True to its aim of delivering as professionalizing a program as possible, emlyon ensures that all MSc in Digital Marketing & Data Science students benefit from the wide-ranging careers services offered across all the school’s campuses, coupled with business-relevant course content. Students, alumni, and leading HR consultant France Gaspard lift the lid on the support on offer.
At a time when recruiters are seeking dual profiles to work in companies faced by digital transformation, students of the MSc in Digital Marketing & Data Science clearly fit the bill. To help them become “industry-ready”, an array of online and physical events is available. For France Gaspard, a careers consultant at the school for the past 5 years, it is of paramount importance “to make students aware of their assets, help them clarify their project, let them take a step back, and inform them about the possibilities and opportunities available”. Through individual and personalized coaching or conferences and webinar sessions (not forgetting the MSc itself), current students are honed to become the kind of marketing technologists that companies will want to snap up upon graduation.
Students on a working mission
Among the reasons why students choose the school and program are the professional opportunities they help create. For Léo Couder “the semester in Shanghai is one of the reasons I applied, not least because the In-Company Project planned for that semester offers a great opportunity to bond with local companies”. For Liya Ma, the course content has proven influential in a change of professional tack: “at first I just wanted to work in the digital marketing or e commerce area, but I have since developed a keen interest in the data science area which is a whole new world to me”.
Recent graduates display a clear career path from the outset in some cases and a change of heart in other cases, but all benefitting from the same support. Rupesh Ashok Kumar swayed very little from the objective he had set himself: “throughout my studies, my goal remained constant as I was dead set on being a competitive Data Scientist. emlyon's DMDS offers all the help you’ll need in gaining the necessary fundamental abilities to work as a marketing technologist”. Charlotte Geissmann, on the other hand, wanted to keep her options open, something the MSc enabled: “I came from a digital marketing background. I was eager to learn more about data science, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to keep my career in digital marketing, data science, or a mix of both. I knew that digital media was not enough for me, and I wanted to broaden my horizons”.
The benefit of hands-on support
The aims of the support made available are numerous - to make students autonomous and aware of all their resources and sometimes remove doubts by helping them value their skills, and to boost self-confidence to help them push through their professional project, among others. For France Gaspard, this is all part of putting students in the professional shop window: “often, they just need to be offered simple and effective actions to highlight their profile and enhance their potential. Once they highlight their strengths and preferences and understand their value in the job market, they are ready to rock the job market”. Virtual career events, a physical career forum, CV, motivation letter and interview training sessions, 1-to-1s with careers consultants, and corporate roundtables feature among the means used to boost career prospects. Tools such as Vmock (a platform designed to check and enhance CVs), approaches such as one-on-one appointments with career specialists, and the large number of courses delivered as part of the MSc from professionals already working in the sector are cited among the most effective forms of support.
Recent and future recruits
So how are the recent and future recruits faring with their professional projects? In Charlotte’s case, the link between course content and her current work is clear to see: “this program allowed me to develop core hard skills but also soft skills. I landed jobs in UX and Analytics, and now I’m working more on products in a start-up. I’m still using some UX methodology I learned through the Master and using some analytics learnings on the daily decisions I must make to support UX”. Rupesh remembers with fondness the chance to “leverage not just the technical aspects of the DMDS, but also the digital aspects, which were crucial in developing key frameworks and sharing findings with the leadership teams of a leading travel technology firm in the south of France”.
As for Léo and Liya, the emphasis is firmly on continuing to learn on the (future) job: “starting from September I will be an intern Data Scientist Consultant at La Défense, where hopefully I will get a job offer at the end. Clearly, the technical skills I learned this year will be the most useful”, recounts Léo. For Liya, channeling the content of the MSc into her forthcoming career is key: “the most important lesson I have ever learned from this programme and this school is that I should always keep learning no matter when - learning should a lifelong habit”.
