1. How has AI changed the kind of marketer companies are looking to hire today?
I think the biggest change is that companies are going to need marketers who can do two things at the same time: understand the fundamentals of marketing and use AI to dramatically increase the breadth of their output, while also moving fast.
There is a temptation to think that the marketer of the future is simply someone who knows how to use the latest AI tools. I don’t believe that. Tools will keep changing. What will remain valuable is the ability to understand a consumer, identify a problem, think clearly, make a good decision and take ownership of the outcome.
AI makes execution cheaper and faster. That does not make marketing less important. In fact, when the cost of creating things comes down, we tend to create much more of them. We saw this with every major technological shift. The nature of the work changes, and new opportunities emerge.
So I think companies will increasingly look for marketers who combine strong fundamentals with the ability to work very effectively with AI.
2. Through your experience at Kraftshala and your interactions with hiring partners, what are you seeing change in the expectations from entry-level marketing talent?
The biggest shift I see is from asking, “What have you studied?” to asking, “What can you actually do?”
At Kraftshala, we work closely with employers and see this quite directly. A qualification can tell you that someone completed a programme. It doesn’t tell you whether they can solve a business problem, communicate their thinking, work with a team or take feedback and improve.
Those things become particularly important at the entry level because nobody expects a young marketer to know everything. What employers want to know is whether this person has the ability to contribute with at least one skill and the mindset to keep learning quickly.
And I think that is going to become even more important with AI. If the tools are changing every few months, you cannot hire someone simply because they know one particular tool. You have to hire someone who can keep learning.
3. As AI takes over more executional tasks, is it making entry-level marketing roles more demanding rather than reducing the need for young talent?
I actually think this is a very important distinction. AI will disrupt some jobs. There is no point pretending otherwise. But disruption does not mean that there will be fewer jobs forever.
If the cost of producing something falls dramatically, we generally end up producing much more of it. Software is a good example. The fact that software has become cheaper to create has not killed software engineering. It has created an enormous amount of software and, along the way, created new businesses and new jobs.
I expect something similar with AI. The entry-level marketer will probably do less of the repetitive execution that used to occupy their time. But that also means the bar for what they contribute has to go up. If AI can produce ten versions of a campaign in minutes, the valuable person is the one who knows which problem is worth solving, which consumer insight matters and which of those ten ideas is actually good.
So yes, the role becomes more demanding. But I don’t think that means the opportunity disappears.
4. Beyond knowing how to use AI tools, what skills do you think will become non-negotiable for the next generation of marketers?
I would divide this into two buckets.
- The first is what I would call timeless skills: critical thinking, communication, problem-solving, the ability to work with people, discipline and the ability to learn.
- The second is the ability to use the latest AI tools effectively.
You need both. It is not AI skills versus foundational skills. If you are brilliant at prompting but cannot understand a consumer or challenge a bad idea, you are not a very good marketer. And if you have excellent marketing fundamentals but refuse to use the tools that can make you ten times more productive, you are also going to struggle. The tools will keep changing. The underlying ability to think, learn and solve problems will not.
5. Are brands and agencies increasingly looking for candidates who can solve business problems and demonstrate practical skills, rather than just having marketing qualifications?
Absolutely. And I think this is a broader shift in higher education, not just marketing.
Most people entering a marketing programme already have a degree. The question is therefore not whether they have a qualification. The question is whether they can create enough value for an employer to justify hiring them.
That is why practical exposure matters so much. At Kraftshala, we have built our programmes around live business problems and projects because there is a huge difference between understanding a marketing concept in a classroom and actually having to make a decision when the answer isn’t obvious.
The industry can teach you very quickly whether you really understand something.
And ultimately, companies hire people because they believe that person’s contribution will be greater than the cost of employing them. That is why employability is such an important measure of whether an education programme is working.
6. What patterns are you seeing in what hiring partners value most in candidates today?
I see three things coming through consistently.
First, communication. You need to be able to express your thinking clearly, whether you are speaking to a manager, writing an email or presenting a recommendation.
Second, problem-solving and judgement. Companies don’t need people who can simply execute instructions. They need people who can look at a problem, break it down and figure out what to do next.
And third, mindset. Are you willing to learn? Can you take feedback? Can you keep going when something doesn’t work?
One of the things we have learned at Kraftshala is that people who may not look exceptional on paper can do extremely well when they build these capabilities. That is why we have become very focused on solving the specific bottleneck that is holding each student back rather than assuming that only the top performers can succeed.
7. Do you think companies are doing enough to prepare their existing teams and young talent for an AI-led workplace, or is the expectation increasingly that candidates should already be AI-ready?
I think the responsibility has to be shared. Companies cannot simply say, “AI is changing everything, come to us already prepared.” If the technology is changing every few months, organisations themselves have to keep learning and reskilling.
At the same time, candidates cannot wait for someone else to make them future-ready. The ability to learn continuously has to become part of the job.
This is also why I think education has to become much more dynamic. At Kraftshala, we have had to change our curriculum continuously because the tools and workflows themselves are changing so quickly. You cannot build an AI-led marketing programme today and assume it will still be exactly right a year from now. The institution has to keep learning too.
8. How should marketing education evolve to keep pace with the way the industry is changing?
First, it needs to become much more connected to what is actually happening in the industry. I strongly believe in learning by doing, with practitioners guiding that process. That was one of the ideas on which Kraftshala was originally built. Students learn differently when they have to solve a real business problem rather than simply study a case where the answer is already known.
Second, education needs the freedom to change quickly. If a programme has to wait for a formal approval every time a new technology or workflow emerges, it will always be behind the industry. The people teaching students need the ability to say, “This is what companies are doing now, so this is what we need to teach now.”
And finally, we need to stop treating employability as something separate from education. For most students, the first job is one of the most important outcomes of the education they are investing in.
9. From what you see at Kraftshala, where do you think the biggest gap still exists between what students learn and what employers actually expect from them?
The biggest gap is between knowing something and being able to do something with it. A student may know what a marketing funnel is. They may know the theory behind a brand campaign. They may even know how to use an AI tool.
But then you give them an actual business problem and ask, “What would you do?” That is where the gap becomes visible.
The other gap is that students often underestimate the importance of the basics. Communication, confidence, discipline, problem-solving and the ability to work with other people can sound very ordinary compared to the excitement around AI. But these are precisely the things that determine whether someone can succeed at work.
We have seen that repeatedly while working with students. If someone is struggling to get placed, we don’t conclude that they are not good enough. We try to identify the bottleneck. Is it the CV? Is it communication? Is it an assignment? Is it confidence? Then we work on that.
The objective is not to identify the five best students. It is to help every student become employable.
10. If you were starting your marketing career today, what would you focus on building to remain relevant and valuable over the next five years?
I would focus on becoming very good at the fundamentals while spending a lot of time tinkering with AR to become comfortable, “AI native” if you will.
I would learn how consumers think. I would learn how businesses make money. I would learn to solve problems, communicate clearly and work with people. And alongside that, I would spend a lot of time understanding what AI can do and how to use it to make myself dramatically more productive.
But I would not look for shortcuts. There is a very strong belief today that if you find the right tool, the right hack or the right prompt, you can somehow skip the hard part. I don’t think that is true.
Consistent success still requires effort, discipline, learning and failure. AI can accelerate the process, but it cannot do the learning for you.
If I were starting today, I would therefore try to become the person who can take a messy business problem, use every tool available to understand it better, make a sound decision and then execute it well. That combination is going to be very difficult to replace.
