How to Get a Marketing Job Without a Degree (In Less Than a Year)

While you might worry that you need a degree to land a marketing job, rest assured: you don’t need a college education to work in marketing.

Acquiring practical marketing skills on your own can open doors just as effectively as a degree, and with dedication, you can achieve great success in the field.

Recruiters in marketing look for candidates who know how to do their job well. While some people learn marketing in college, others acquire it through less traditional methods. The key is to have the skills, regardless of how you obtain them.

So how do you get a marketing job without a degree?

1. Pick a niche.
2. Take a course or teach yourself the fundamentals, then get certified.
3. Practice your skills and create an impressive portfolio.

In this article, we break down each of these steps to help you secure a marketing job. While we mostly focus on digital marketing—as that’s our specialty—we’ll also include some pathways into traditional marketing.

One option we’ll discuss for mastering marketing skills is the Paid Search Marketing course we offer at Climb Hire. The course is free for all of 2024. Plus, we’ll not only give you the skills you need to land a digital marketing job, but we’ll help you find a job, too.

Over 80% of Climb Hire graduates find work within six months of completing a course, most of them earning salaries of $50k or more. From the moment you start our program, you can generally expect to find a marketing job within a year.

Climb Hire is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping low-income working adults start careers in tech. Apply now to our Paid Search Marketing course.

1. Pick a Marketing Niche

Digital marketing—let alone the marketing industry, in general—has a lot of specializations. If you’re just starting out, it can be useful to pick a niche to dedicate yourself to, so you can show employers you have a deep understanding of a particular area.

To make the process easier, here are some ways to narrow down which niche might be right for you:

• Content Marketing or Email Marketing: If you have a gift for words and enjoy writing, consider content marketing or email marketing. Content marketing involves a lot of copywriting, creating content, and promoting your work to attract and engage your target audience. More specifically, email marketing focuses on sending targeted messages to nurture leads, promote products, and build customer relationships.
• Paid Search Marketing or Search Engine Optimization (SEO): If you’re tech-savvy and have a knack for strategic thinking, consider paid search marketing or SEO. Paid search, also known as pay-per-click (PPC), involves creating and managing ads, bidding on keywords, and optimizing ad performance to drive relevant traffic. SEO enhances website visibility and ranking through content optimization for organic traffic.
• Social Media Marketing: For those who are highly creative and enjoy social media, social media marketing might be for you. This niche involves promoting brands and products across social media channels to increase visibility, engagement, and brand awareness.
• Digital Analytics or Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): If you excel at data analysis, roles in CRO or digital analytics may be a perfect fit. In CRO, you’ll fine-tune websites and marketing efforts to boost conversions and achieve targeted objectives, like driving purchases or sign-ups. Digital analytics positions involve leveraging data insights to maximize ROI and optimize overall performance across various digital platforms.

Considering your natural abilities and interests is crucial when deciding on a digital marketing career path. Aligning your career with what you’re most interested in will lead to greater satisfaction and success in the field.

Plus, the good news is that earning certifications—rather than a marketing degree—is enough to qualify you for your first job in most of these niches.

2. Take a Course or Teach Yourself the Fundamentals, Then Get Certified

Once you’ve chosen your specialization, getting trained is essential. Certification plays a significant role in this process. Having a globally recognized industry certification enhances your resume and demonstrates to hiring managers that you possess the skills needed to excel in the role.

Of course, the niche you choose will determine which certifications will benefit your resume. For example, if you choose to specialize in PPC marketing, entry-level jobs will often want you to have at least one of the following Google certifications:

• Google Ads Search Certification
• Google Ads Apps Certification
• Google Ads Display Certification
• Google Ads Video Certification

They might also seek out candidates with certifications from Meta—such as the Meta Certified Digital Marketing Associate certification—or from other platforms with PPC marketing.

When it comes to learning the marketing skills needed for certified, there are two popular approaches:

1. A structured course led by an instructor.
2. A self-guided course.

Let’s look into the details of each one.

Get Certified with a Structured, Instructor-Led Course

Structured courses are taught by live instructors, either online or in person. Learning from a live instructor is beneficial for several reasons:

• Personalized guidance and immediate feedback: Live instructors provide real-time feedback and support, allowing for clarification of concepts and addressing questions promptly.
• Accountability: Regular class sessions and assignments help keep students accountable and motivated to stay on track with their learning goals.
• Hands-on practice: Live courses often include practice with the platforms and tools used in the niche. Under the guidance of an instructor, students can feel confident they’re applying theoretical concepts in real-world scenarios to correctly develop the skills they need to succeed in the field.
• Certification prep: Most instructor-led courses have curriculums designed to specifically train you toward industry-recognized certifications. With an instructor there to guide you, you can be sure you’re learning everything you need to pass those exams.

But how do you find such a course?

While you may be able to find courses locally, some of these can be pretty expensive. Instead, seeking out non-profits in the tech industry might be a good place to look for learning programs.

For example, at Climb Hire, we offer a four-month course in Paid Search Marketing that is free to all students in 2024, courtesy of our generous donors.

Climb Hire’s Course in Paid Search Marketing

Climb Hire’s Paid Search Marketing course is a fully remote, instructor-led program that will train you in the technical skills to earn the Google Ads Search and Meta Certified Digital Marketing Associate certifications.

Over 80% of Climb Hire graduates secure jobs within six months of program completion, often starting with salaries exceeding $50k. This impressive success rate highlights just how effective Climb Hire is in launching lucrative tech careers.

Here’s why our Paid Search Marketing program stands out in the sea of digital marketing course options:

• Completely free tuition for all students in 2024, thanks to generous donors. This ensures that financial barriers don’t stand in the way of your career aspirations.

• Thorough training in the knowledge and skills you’ll need for PPC marketing. Our training specifically prepares you to earn the Google Ads Search and the Meta Certified Digital Marketing Associate certifications. These are both industry-recognized and widely sought out by job recruiters in the digital marketing industry.

• Live instruction from industry experts ensures you’ll get the guidance you need to grasp complex technical concepts. This interactive approach allows you to ask questions and seek clarification in real-time, so you understand the material.

• Hands-on projects in real-world PPC marketing tasks, by way of a capstone project where you’ll be working with actual clients. This means you’ll get invaluable work experience that bolsters your resume and readies you for entry-level marketing jobs.
• You’ll learn in a “pod” of like-minded peers who provide encouragement, share insights, and may even connect you to job opportunities down the road.
• Aside from technical training, we also dedicate class time to teaching you “soft skills,” like crafting resumes and cover letters and excelling in job interviews. These are crucial skills for securing a great full-time job in any industry.
• You’ll be assigned a dedicated Career Development Advisor who will work closely with you during your job search to help you secure a digital marketing job upon program completion.
• Climb Hire alumni gain access to our vast professional network. Having connections in the tech industry can speed up your job search by leading you directly to job openings.

The results speak for themselves, as the success of Climb Hire alumni confirms:

Apply now for Climb Hire’s Paid Search Marketing program. The application is quick and easy, with no educational prerequisites other than speaking English.

Work Toward Certification with a Self-Guided Course

As a quick internet search will show you, self-guided courses in various digital marketing niches are widely available. This involves learning on your own by following premade course materials. Some are structured around earning specific certifications, while others provide more general digital marketing principles.

There are both pros and cons to this approach.

Pros of Taking a Self-Guided Course

• You can study at your own pace. This makes it easy to fit learning into a busy schedule.
• Many self-guided courses are pretty affordable. Several on YouTube are even free.
• You won’t be limited to what specific institutions are offering, as there’s a vast array of self-guided online courses in many digital marketing niches available at any time.

Cons of Taking a Self-Guided Course

• Even with the course materials, you’re essentially teaching yourself. That means no feedback if you have questions, and you can potentially get caught up in bad habits.
• Discipline can be challenging with independent learning. You’ll need to stay focused and on track with your learning goals without the accountability provided by an instructor.
• There’s no guarantee the course is thorough in covering the essential knowledge and skills you’ll need to earn certifications and excel in an entry-level role.
• Many of the more thorough courses that lead specifically toward certification aren’t always cost-effective.
• You’ll be on your own in your job search, without the help of a community, mentors, or a wide network in your industry.

Ultimately, whether or not pursuing a self-guided course in digital marketing is right for you depends on factors like your learning style, goals, and budget.

3. Practice Your New Skills and Create an Impressive Portfolio

No matter which learning approach you take, a great candidate for a marketing position will be able to show potential employers a portfolio that highlights what they can do. That’s true whether or not you have a college degree or other certification.

Often when job hunting, you’ll run into the classic dilemma: you need experience to land a job, but you need a job to gain experience. A huge benefit of starting a career in digital marketing is that you can build an impressive portfolio by doing projects on your own.

Here are some ways to do this:

Start Your Own Blog or Website

This applies to many of the digital marketing niches, from SEO to PPC to data analytics to content marketing. With your own blog or website, you’ll be able to practice different strategies and show tangible results, for example:

• If you’re focusing on content marketing or SEO, you can experiment with creating engaging blog posts, optimizing them for search engines, and analyzing audience engagement metrics to refine your approach and drive results.

• Use A/B testing on your ad campaigns to see how tweaking things will impact results. With marketing analytic tools, you’ll be able to examine exactly which factors are impacting performance and adjust as you see fit.
• Practice PPC by using a small budget to create Google Ad campaigns and analyze their performance in real-time.

Document what you’ve done and the results to use your blog as part of your portfolio.

Build a Social Media Page

Whether your specialization is content marketing, PPC, social media marketing, or another area of digital marketing, creating and managing a social media account will showcase your ability to curate content, spot marketing trends, engage with followers, and drive engagement. These are all valuable skills in the digital marketing industry.

• If your focus is content marketing, you can use platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, or Pinterest to share visually appealing content and grow a dedicated audience.
• For PPC or social media marketing, you can create and tweak targeted ad campaigns for Meta, Instagram, or TikTok.
• For email marketing, you can build an email list from your followers and design engaging newsletters to send to subscribers.

Again, document your strategies and results to show concrete evidence of your skill set and achievements. You can include screenshots of successful marketing campaigns, analytics data showing audience growth and engagement metrics, and testimonials from satisfied clients or followers.

Volunteer Your Skills or Apply for an Internship

Offer your digital marketing skills for free to friends, acquaintances, small businesses, or non-profits. You can use all this work in your portfolio. You might also try to find an internship to serve this same purpose. It’ll help you gain practical marketing experience while also showcasing your abilities to potential employers or clients.

In addition to creating your own blog or social media page, these are great options because they show off your ability to work on real-world projects and collaborate with others in a professional setting. They can also lead to valuable connections and networking opportunities, further enhancing your career prospects.

A huge benefit of Climb Hire is the personalized support and community we offer, even after you graduate. You’ll be able to come back to our community for feedback and guidance on your projects and portfolio as you practice your digital marketing skills in the real world.

How to Get a Job in Traditional Marketing without a Degree

Traditional marketing focuses on offline channels, such as TV, billboards, newspapers, magazines, and direct mail. Landing a job in these marketing niches may be possible by taking specialized training courses.

For example, UCLA Extension offers a five-course certificate in the fundamentals of marketing, with classes available either online or in-person. Cornell University also offers a Marketing Strategy Certificate program focusing on how to take a product to market, which you can complete in under four months.

While these courses won’t give you a conventional degree, they can provide you with a general introduction to marketing. However, there are good reasons why you might find digital marketing is a better option to pursue:

• There are no standardized, industry-recognized certifications in traditional marketing. That means employers in traditional marketing will be more likely to look for an associate’s or bachelor’s degree as a primary credential.
• Traditional marketing courses (like the ones offered by UCLA and Cornell) aren’t always meant for beginners, aren’t widely available, and typically cost thousands of dollars. Plus, as any certificate they give you won’t be universally recognized across the industry.

• There are fewer entry-level job opportunities in traditional marketing compared to digital marketing. The global shift to everything online means that businesses are increasingly investing their resources in digital marketing channels, where they can reach wider audiences, track campaign performance more accurately, and achieve higher returns on investment.

We’re not saying it’s impossible to get into traditional marketing without a degree, only that it could be a more challenging road.

Join Climb Hire to Start Your Digital Marketing Career Without a Degree

Climb Hire’s four-month Paid Search Marketing program will teach you the fundamentals of PPC marketing that lead directly to some of the most sought-after certifications in the industry: Google Ads Certification and Meta Certified Digital Marketing Associate.

These certifications are essential to make you competitive in the industry. They’re also a great jumping-off point for your new digital marketing career.

On top of that, our program has many other benefits:

• It’s free for all students who enroll in 2024.
• Our program teaches technical skills and gives you hands-on experience through a capstone project with a real-world client.
• You’ll have a Career Development Advisor dedicated to helping you find a job.
• You’ll graduate with a wide professional network in the industry, not to mention a community of supportive peers.

Over 80% of Climb Hire students find jobs within six months of graduating. Between the four months of classes and six months or less of job hunting, you could be looking at launching your digital marketing career within a year.

Apply now to launch your digital marketing career.