marketing career

I have two potential opportunities for internships, but they are asking for design skills such as illustrator and photoshop, website design (one is a new video-game studio, and the second one is a software company not related to video-game). So the question is simple, do I really need to know this stuff in order to succeed in the career, or in a corporate structure? I thought the marketing executive was responsible for hiring an advertising / design agency to take care of this. When I say career, I really mean serious marketing career, within a structured company, either a studio or publisher

Short answer I would say yes, it good to *at least* have the basics down for these Adobe programs.

It's true, for most graphic design work company's will use actual graphic designers to do projects however you may be asked from time to time to do in-house work where knowledge of these programs will be an advantage.

Right now I work as a Marketing Coordinator for a multi-national company and because of my experience with photoshop they've asked me to take on a lot of projects that they normally would have paid a graphic designer to do. In the end they are saving a lot of money for the same calibere of work.

If you don't have the computer programs they quoted in their vacancy ads (because they are very expensive!) visit Adobe's offical website and download free 30-day trials of what you need. During those 30 days practice, practice, practice so at least by the end of it you'll be familiar with how the programs work.

For tutorials just google "illustrator tutorials, photoshop tutorials..." etc to find projects to get you familiar with how they all work.

Hope that helps!