How can I break into marketing?

How do you break into advertising when you have a degree and a work history in marketing but no ad agency exp?

• Every ad agency wants someone with experience in ad agency. I have event and program marketing experience.

• Answer:

  Forget about your experience. Do you want to be at an agency? Why? What is an agency, anyway? You have experience in marketing, you need to apply that to yourself. You need to market yourself. You need to figure out what parts of your experience are valuable to an advertising agency, if that's where you want to be. Don't let what the job description says they're looking for deter you. And don't focus on traditional agencies. Lots of smaller shops are popping up all over the place. Don't limit your searches to Monster and CareerBuilder. Check Craig's List. Go to colleges and check the job boards in the halls. Ask friends and peers. Search around and find the right place for you to work, whether it's a large agency or a smaller one, an "Ad Agency," or maybe a marketing company or promotional company. Once you find the one you want, then put your experience and your skills to use and market yourself aggressively to them.