During the early months of 2022, I decided that I wanted to pursue a career in marketing. I started an Instagram account focused on vegan and vegetarian dishes, hoping to use that as an opportunity to hone my social media marketing skills. However, after putting out a steady amount of content for a few weeks, I began to be discouraged. Social Media Marketing turned out to be much more complex than I thought it would be. I knew very little about analytics, copywriting, or search engine optimization. Upon, realizing my knowledge deficiencies, I went searching for free resources that would help me develop my marketing skills. Thanks to these resources, I was eventually able to land an apprenticeship as a digital marketer (find out where at the end of this blog post).

One of the first free resources I stumbled upon was Google’s Digital Marketing course. Made up of instructional videos, interviews, and quizzes, Google’s Fundamentals of Digital Marketing course allowed me to dip my toe into areas like SEO (search engine optimization), responsive design, and Google ads for the first time. When I completed the final test, I received a personalized certificate that I could display on LinkedIn and my resume.

The next two marketing certificates I received were from the same company. HubSpot offers an array of free marketing courses ranging from email marketing to SEO. The first course I completed was their Social Media Marketing course. Later on, I completed the SEO course.

While unpaid online learning certificates may not wow an interviewer, it certainly helped in my case to show that I was serious about pursuing marketing and prove that I already had a reasonable level of base knowledge. These classes especially helped since in my case, I had only a small, sporadic marketing portfolio.

Finally, where did I find my digital marketing apprenticeship? I actually found it on Reddit! I frequently surf the web in search of websites and programs that would be useful for my education journey. The website I discovered was Acadium.com. Acadium is a website that matches aspiring digital marketers to companies that are willing to remotely mentor them. Because it functions as an unpaid internship, participants (like myself) don’t need to have a lot (or any) of experience. All you need is 10 hours a week to dedicate to being an apprentice and a willingness to learn. My current apprenticeship will last three months with a digital marketing agency that focuses on start-ups and medium-sized businesses.

After my apprenticeship ends, I plan to transition to another company as a paid intern and/or start doing some freelance work while I finish my bachelor’s degree. I will continue to post updates on this blog about my marketing journey and my other digital pursuits!

Here are the links to the courses and website mentioned in this blog post:

• Fundamentals of Digital Marketing – Google
• Social Media Marketing – HubSpot
• Search Engine Optimization – HubSpot
• Acadium – Apprenticeship Program

Happy Marketing!