How Students Can Start a Career in Marketing: How to Get Into Digital Marketing

Entering the world of digital marketing can seem complicated. There are too many options, many different roles, and growing competition. But the good news is that there have never been so many opportunities for students and recent graduates who want to start a career in marketing. The most important thing is to know how to get started from scratch, acquire the necessary skills, and build a coherent professional career.

Many students wonder whether they should use resume writing service to help them take their first steps. This can be a useful one-off help, but the most important thing is to learn how to communicate your own experience clearly and strategically. Ultimately, your career will depend more on your ability to learn and adapt than on a perfectly designed CV.

In this guide, you will find a practical, step-by-step guide to discovering how to get into digital marketing, choosing the role within digital marketing that best suits you, creating a real portfolio, improving your profile and building a solid career path that will yield good results in the long term.

1- Understanding the Marketing Field

Before applying for any vacancy, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of what a marketing job is. Many people only think about advertisements, social media, or creative campaigns for brands, but the reality is much broader. Within digital marketing, there are multiple areas such as these:

• Brand management: defining and maintaining a company’s overall narrative by informing potential customers about its competitive advantages.
• Digital analytics: working with traffic and conversion tracking data to guide strategic decisions.
• Content marketing: transforming ideas into engaging articles, videos or podcasts that communicate the brand’s values and strengths.
• Digital public relations: managing an organisation’s online reputation and strategic partnerships with influencers and brand ambassadors.
• Email marketing: creating personalised campaigns that drive conversion.
• Online advertising (SEM, Social Ads): designing and optimising campaigns on Google, Meta, LinkedIn, or other social networks where potential consumers can be found.

Digital marketing is such a diverse sector that it suits different profiles. There is room for analytical, creative, technical, and social people. Both introverts and extroverts can find their place in digital marketing.

2- Align your interests with potential roles

The best way to find out what you do in marketing is to compare your interests with the different types of jobs available.

Let’s look at some practical examples:

• If you enjoy writing or storytelling, content marketing may be the most viable path for you.
• If you like numbers, you can opt for data analytics or campaign optimisation.
• If you like sales and are good at persuading people, copywriting and advertising strategy may be ideal.
• If you spend hours on Twitch or YouTube, you already have a better idea of how community management works.

A useful practical exercise is to create a table with two columns:

1. Your interests, skills, and hobbies.
2. The marketing roles that relate to them.

This cross-reference will give you clarity and make conversations with recruiters, teachers, or mentors easier.

3- Build a solid knowledge base

It is not enough to simply want to work in marketing; you will need to have and demonstrate a solid theoretical and practical foundation.

Some steps you can take right now:

• Take advantage of university courses in advertising, consumer behaviour, or market research.
• Complement your studies with recognised digital certifications: Google Ads, HubSpot, Meta Blueprint, SEMrush.
• Read classic marketing books such as ‘Influence’ by Robert Cialdini or ‘This Is Marketing’ by Seth Godin.
• Follow case studies on YouTube, podcasts and expert blogs.

There is a famous quote: ‘The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing’ — Tom Fishburne. This phrase perfectly reflects why it is key to combine theory with empathy to achieve authentic marketing.

The habit of continuous training is what sets apart someone who aspires to a position and someone who really knows how to be good at marketing.

4- Gain practical experience as soon as possible

One of the keys factors to landing your first employment in marketing career jobs is to demonstrate practical results. Even if you don’t have formal work experience, you can create your own projects that showcase your skills:

• Design a social media plan for a local business you know.
• Run a low-budget Facebook Ads campaign for a university club, sports club, nonprofit organization, etc.
• Create a small blog on a topic you are passionate about and grow its audience.

A LinkedIn study (2022) revealed that 60% of employers value proven practical experience (projects, internships, volunteer work) more than academic grades when evaluating young marketing candidates.

Document your actions, collect metrics, and save screenshots. All of this will help you create a digital portfolio that speaks for you as a person with proven experience in digital marketing.

5- Building a strategic online presence

Nowadays, your digital profile is your best business card. Before calling you for an interview, recruiters often check your social media accounts, such as LinkedIn…

Here are some practical recommendations:

• Optimise your profile with a professional photo and a well-written description.
• Post regular reflections on campaigns, lessons learned, or experiments you are conducting.
• Use Medium, Substack, or your own blog to write longer articles.
• Create a personal portfolio under your own domain.

The key is not to post a lot, but to do so consistently and add value. One useful post each week will probably have more impact than ten posts in a row followed by months of silence.

6- Purposeful networking

Networking is not about accumulating a huge number of contacts, but about building strong, lasting relationships.

Here are some useful actions:

• Join marketing associations and university clubs.
• Attend free webinars on tools such as HubSpot or SEMrush.
• Connect with professionals on LinkedIn and thank them with a brief message introducing yourself or your goals.
• Offer to help: responding to surveys, sharing resources, or reviewing a post can open doors for you.

Keeping a well-organised record of your contacts, sharing your experiences with them, kindly requesting their feedback, and following up every few months will allow you to maintain lively and authentic relationships.

7- Making the most of internships

Internships are not only a learning experience for marketing students, but also an opportunity to find employment. To turn them into a springboard:

• Clarify your objectives with your supervisor from day one.
• Be proactive and seek to contribute beyond the basic tasks assigned to you.
• Document your achievements with clear metrics (e.g., ‘I improved the email open rate by 7%’).
• Ask for feedback and apply it.
• Before finishing your internship, talk to your supervisor or company staff about future opportunities or references they can provide to help you find a job.

Think of an internship as an extended trial period where you demonstrate your true value.

8- Soft skills as a differentiating factor

Although technical skills are essential, what really makes a marketer stand out are their soft skills.

Some of the most important ones are:

• Clear communication: writing accurate and easy-to-understand emails or articles.
• Time management: using tools such as Notion or Trello to organise yourself properly.
• Active listening: showing empathy in meetings and negotiations in which you participate.
• Stress management: participating in activities that expose you to pressure (debates, theatre, events).

These marketing skills are the practical answer to the question what do you do in marketing: connecting with people and solving real problems.

9- Planning the first five years of your career

Digital marketing is a dynamic and highly flexible field. Having a five-year plan can help you move forward with direction and evaluate your progress. Here is an example that you can customise to your particular case:

• Year 1: learn a little about everything, experiment with different campaigns.
• Year 2: start to specialise in an area that motivates you (SEO, SEM, Email, Paid Media).
• Year 3: lead small projects or mentor new students.
• Year 4: obtain advanced certifications or consider postgraduate studies.
• Year 5: decide whether you prefer a career as a manager, senior specialist or entrepreneur.

It is a good idea to review your plan every six months and adjust it to your actual experience, progress and goals.

Conclusions

Knowing how to get into digital marketing is not a matter of luck, but of strategy. It all starts with understanding what marketing is, how to fit it in with your interests and goals, constantly training yourself, and creating practical projects that demonstrate your abilities. From there, your online presence, your network of contacts, and your proactive attitude will be what sets you apart.

Digital marketing not only offers jobs, but a career with endless possibilities. The important thing is to take the first step, learn from each experience, and maintain your curiosity and passion for improving every day.