Off the Record: Nobody's Coming to Save Your Digital Marketing Career

The digital marketing job market is frozen. Record-low hiring, record-low firing, and job boards flooded with ghost listings that want your resume data and not you. If you have been waiting for things to go back to normal, keep waiting. The rest of us are making moves.

The uncomfortable truth: AI is not the threat. Being replaceable is. According to new Anthropic research, the workers most at risk are not in warehouses or call centers. They are educated, well-paid knowledge workers. Digital marketers, analysts, programmers. Us.

We are bringing together three of Milwaukee's top digital marketing and creative leaders who are living this in real time.

Nora Lahl, Partner and COO at Lightburn, is navigating what it takes to keep a team and a business moving in a frozen market.

Matt Ruud made the jump from 15 years in agency life to in-house at Unisys in 2024 and is watching the landscape shift from the inside.

Melissa Graham spent over a decade leading marketing teams across newsrooms, nonprofits, and agencies. When the market shifted, she shifted with it.

Moderated by Renee Girard, Director of SEO at Whitepages and Programming Director at MKE DMC.

This is the conversation your manager is not having with you. Come ready to talk. Leave with a plan.

You will walk away with:

• A clear picture of what is actually happening in the 2026 digital marketing job market
• Tactical advice on ghost jobs, ATS walls, and building the kind of career AI can't replace
• Perspective on where digital marketing is heading and what to start building now

Agenda:

• 5:00 PM - Chill networking and happy hour
• 6:15 PM - Panel discussion
• 7:30 PM - Time to leave

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