US Government to Classify Search Marketers

"All you need is to work for US company and have more than 5 years of Search experience."

The 17-year-old next door googles and works at McDonalds. I'll send him the link. (He can be a consumer rep on the committee. Actually, he probably would be pretty good.)

This is the perfect job/exercise/task for marketers, i.e., an exercise in branding / personal branding.

From the article:

We wanted to properly position search marketers as highly skilled strategists, because we’re different than perhaps regular software programmers or clerical workers.

Ouch! So much for the P.R. arm of marketing. Ya, SEOs and SEMs are far more skilled than those regular software programmers.

Right, Toddster? :P

They do just fine without classification, thank you very much! (no really, it's written in the article)

A label, proof of qualification before claiming the title, taxes and better monitoring of experts etc, I get the upside for consumers.

A title, proof of experience and references when applying for a job, perhaps even a bit more bargaining power when negotiating salary etc, I get the upside for professionals.

This is one field however that if you can, you do for yourself. If this turns into any sort of "proof of qualification required" before your site is accepted into any sort of "web 3.0" remake of the internet it's a disaster in the making. The fact is search engines rank pages, the government doesn't need to step in to decide who is worthy and who isn't. If that's on the agenda this is step 1 (and should be disclosed immediately).

I think this is more about hourly vs. salaried job classifications. They are looking at classifying a lot of search marketing jobs where the position is not a supervisory or senior position as hourly rather than salaried. This could have a huge financial impact on firms who traditionally have entry level search marketers working non-traditional hours or long hours (as most of us currently do).

This is a system of classification so they can tax you. Nothing else.

Another way to look at it: some manager at some agency needed to get something to do. So a new classification agenda was created. No one wants to tax anybody. It's just another way to boost the economy in that sector.

"This is a system of classification so they can tax you. Nothing else. "

I don't think it's anything insidious like that. I volunteered to participate in the survey a few weeks back. I feel that it has more to do with adding credibility to the industry and receiving official recognition for the job field.

If we work with US Company outside USA like in Canada are will entitled for the job?