• by Sarah Mahoney , 6 hours ago

This week, Meta announced it was cutting 8,000 jobs — 10% of its workforce — while simultaneously eliminating 6,000 open roles it had planned to fill. It was just the latest headline in a drumbeat of bad news for anyone hoping to land a marketing job this spring. Reductions are ongoing at Amazon, Microsoft and Omnicom. And according to data from research firm Taligence, entry-level marketing postings fell 8.6% last year, even as the number of employers posting senior roles actually grew. More companies are hiring. They're just not hiring juniors.

The reason isn't hard to find. AI is doing the drudge work — the research summaries, the deck-building, the early copy drafts — that companies used to hand to the new kid. "AI is hitting tasks before it hits jobs," says Pat Murphy, CEO of MurphyCobb Associates, a production consultancy that advises multinational brands, citing recent research from Anthropic. "The biggest risk isn't job losses. It's that career ladders are quietly disappearing."

That disappearing ladder is the real story of the 2026 hiring market. Jobs exist. The problem is the path from here to there.

For decades, the entry-level marketing deal was simple if unglamorous: New grads fetched coffee, prepped presentations, and did the stuff nobody else wanted to do. In return, the company trained them, often providing the next step up the ladder. Even though most formal training programs evaporated decades ago,  there was an implied commitment to talent development, even rotating younger hires through various departments.

In a way, drudgery was the main ingredient, says Jim Lecinski, clinical professor of marketing at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management and a former Google executive, offering valuable lessons on the nitty-gritty details of marketing. And as AI absorbs the grunt work, nobody has figured out what replaces it on a tender young resume. "You and I could build an AI tool that did drug discovery," he says, "but we don't know anything about drug discovery. So how are we going to know if what it produces is good or not?"

AI can do a lot. But so far, it can’t teach marketing judgment.

"How do we ensure that junior marketers are getting experience and exposure to the types of activities that are going to teach them the right judgment skills to become tomorrow's brand managers?" asks Jerusha Harvey, senior vice president of marketing capabilities at the Association of National Advertisers, which recently surveyed more than 130 CMOs and senior marketing leaders on the topic. "That's what leaders are wrestling with right now."

While it will likely take years for CMOs to come to terms with the inevitable skills shortage the entry-level slowdown will cause, up-and-coming grads shouldn’t wait for the industry’s senior execs to figure it out.

Here's what experts say grads should do now:

*Get hands-on experience any way you can. Even if you can’t find a marketing job, do marketing anyway, suggests Lecinski. Help a neighbor run Amazon ads for her small business. Volunteer to run social for a local nonprofit. "You get your hands in it, and it also gives you a story to tell in an interview," he says. "I haven't done this for a billion-dollar company, but I know the ad formats, I know how to track KPIs, because I've done it."

*Sharpen the human skills AI can’t replicate. "The marketers who will thrive will not just be the ones who know the tools,” says Murphy. “They will be the ones with the strongest human skills." Storytelling, rapport, commercial instinct and the ability to persuade are going to be a rare commodity," he says. Harvey echoes it from the brand-leader side: Critical thinking and the ability to learn quickly are what CMOs say they're hiring for above all else.

*Show AI initiative anyway. Harvey points out that many employers are specifically looking for candidates with AI tools, even if that's not universal. And she acknowledges that AI is moving so fast it’s hard to keep up. But taking free AI courses — and being able to discuss them in an interview — signals the disposition that matters more than the credential itself.

*Pursue the unsexy. While they may not be seen as glamorous, “people are always surprised at the level of technology and sophistication at companies like Clorox, Domino's and Coca-Cola," he says. "Get past the stereotype that it's old and dusty." The Taligence data supports the instinct: brand marketing postings rose nearly 10% last year, even as digital marketing and general marketing roles declined.

The mood among Kellogg’s graduating MBAs, Lecinski says, is "cautiously optimistic" — not euphoric, but not panicked either. Many have offers. "You can't let it consume you and turn it into a doom loop," he says. "If you are a highly qualified candidate, trust the process. Control what you can control."

Expect a cold shoulder. But remember, it's not a wall.