February 24, 2021

Delgado’s Career Speaker Series Featuring Flynn, Our CEO

This morning, I was honored to be a part of Delgado Career Speaker Series, where I got the opportunity to talk about my career path, the world of digital marketing, advice on getting jobs in marketing/design at agencies or in-house, or the crazy journey that is entrepreneurship.

Below is the video of my Webinar, as well as some detailed answers below for some of the follow-up questions.

Follow Up Questions

What are some of the best certifications to get in 2021 for a career in marketing?

My recommendation is to pick a specific kind of digital marketing and work toward building your strengths in that.

Social Media Certifications

HubSpot Social Media Strategy (free, takes roughly 4 hours)
Facebook Blueprint Certifications ($99 – 150, hours varies significantly)
Twitter Flight School badges (free, 2-4 hours)

SEM / PPC / Paid Search (Google Ads) Certifications

This one was obvious: various Google Ads Certifications (2 – 5 hours, free)
Hubspot’s Winning Online Advertising Strategies (3 hours, free)

Not sure what you want to do? If you’re looking for general marketing knowledge, here’s a few great general digital marketing certifications:

Google’s Fundamentals of Digital Marketing (free, 40ish hours)
Google Analytics Individual Qualification (free, 4 – 10 hours)
Various LinkedIn Learning Courses ($29.99 / month, various hours)

Lastly, while it doesn’t lead to a certificate, I strongly recommend reading Moz’s Beginner’s Guide to SEO for a 1 day crash course in SEO, and everything you need to know about how search engines work.

How Should I Build My Portfolio?

If you’re looking to build a marketing portfolio, a website is a great way to showcase a variety of work. There are a few website builders (that will also give you experience on their platform) with specific portfolio templates, which I’ve listed below.

If a website builder feels overwhelming, you can build your portfolio as a PDF (and yes, send it as a PDF, not as a Microsoft Word Doc.

The important thing is to give context to your work: don’t simply give screenshots. Provide the context of the project, the goals, and most importantly, how you successfully achieved those goals on time, on budget, and above the other stakeholder’s expectations.

For web designers, a portfolio site is even more important, because you’re utilizing your skills to showcase your work on the very platform that someone is hiring for. In these cases, it’s important to ensure that your site showcases the different languages you know. Lastly, make sure that you test your device on a variety of platforms and devices. You don’t know if the hiring supervisor will be reviewing your application on a desktop, laptop, tablet, or phone, so it has to look great on all of them.