Summary:
Who this article is for:
- Marketing students and recent grads trying to break into the industry
- Early-career marketers wondering whether to go agency or corporate
- Anyone who wants practical, unfiltered hiring advice from a CEO who reads a lot of resumes
Key takeaways:
- Reaching out proactively tells a hiring manager more about you than a resume ever could
- Agency life means variety, growth, and challenges — but you will always be a little stressed
- Vague resume language loses jobs. Specific certifications and tools win them
- Technical skills get you hired. Soft skills — communication, pitching, account management — get you promoted
- AI is taking over technical skills first, which means soft skills are worth more now, not less
- Building your own website and connecting it to real tools is one of the most underrated things a new grad can do
What’s inside:
- How Josh got into marketing and eventually co-founded Big Red Jelly
- Agency vs. corporate: the real tradeoffs
- What hiring managers actually want to see on a resume
- Why soft skills matter more than ever in an AI era
- A step-by-step portfolio-building exercise any student can do this week
- How to get started with AI tools and build your first skill
A marketing student reached out to me on LinkedIn a few weeks ago and asked if I’d hop on a call. He’s a senior, about to graduate, and wanted to know how to break into marketing. We talked for about thirty minutes, and afterward I realized I’d basically walked him through how we hire at Big Red Jelly. So I figured I’d write it down.
First, credit where it’s due. Most students never reach out at all. The fact that he did told me more about him than a résumé could.
How I Ended Up Here
I always knew I wanted to do something in business. My dad’s a businessman, so it was kind of in the water. But marketing was the thing that clicked. I’d sit in an accounting class and hate it, then walk into a marketing class and think, “Oh, this is fun.” As I told him, “It’s kind of like creative finally meets analytics.”
I started a small company in college, sold it when I graduated, and got into agency life. I worked at Idea Booth in Chicago, then 97th Floor, then Saxton Horne. I always wanted my own shop, and nine years ago my co-founder Zach and I started Big Red Jelly.
Agency or Corporate?
This is the first question most students are wrestling with, and there’s no wrong answer. Corporate marketing is usually lower stress, sometimes better pay, and the processes are already dialed in. You’ll probably do one specific role and do it well.
That never appealed to me. “I get bored easily. I want every day to be different. I want challenges. I want to grow.” You get that at an agency.
My advice to young marketers — especially anyone who loves branding — is to find a small to midsize agency that’s growing and “become the guy there.” You’ll touch dozens of clients and see what actually works. Then maybe you outgrow that agency and move to a bigger one, and eventually you’re running marketing for a brand you love.
I’m upfront with every candidate about the tradeoff, though. Agency life has a reputation for burning people out, and it’s not totally undeserved. “You’ll never be bored, but you’ll always be a little stressed.”
What Gets You the Job
I look at a lot of résumés, and I think people overthink them. The biggest miss I see is vague language. We’re right next to BYU, and I’ll get applications that list “strategy” and “creative thinking” as skills. “I’m like, what does that even mean?”
What I want to see is specific. You know the Adobe Creative Suite and here’s your portfolio. You’re Google Ads certified. You’ve set up Google Analytics. You’ve used HubSpot. When I see that, I think, “This person can come in and immediately do something valuable.”
If you’re still in school, go get certified in Meta Ads, Google Ads, and Google Analytics — even if they don’t excite you. That’s what agency owners are looking for.
What Gets You Promoted
This is the part I care about most. Technical skills will get you the job, but soft skills will get you promoted. That’s how I built my own career.
I run an exercise with our brand strategists that makes the point pretty clearly. “Give me the same logo. Let’s both present the same logo to the client, and the client will like mine more. Why? Because I can pitch it better.” They’re the better designer, no question. But half the battle is how you sell the work.
I tell our team constantly, “You have to embrace your inner salesperson and therapist. You need to be both.” Communication, project management, account management, and the ability to sell are the most underrated skills in this business.
I’ve opened a brand strategist role, pulled up a portfolio, and been blown away. Then I get on a call and “it’s like I’m talking to an alien.” If your plan is to sit in the back room designing while someone else presents your work, I think that model is outdated.
AI makes this even more true. It’s “taking over technical skills first, right? Therefore, it puts more value on soft skills.” The people who can think, communicate, and build trust with clients are going to be worth more, not less.
Homework for anyone reading this: watch Mad Men. It’s a fun show, and it’s all about how brilliant work only matters if you can sell it.
Build Your Own Website
People assume a portfolio is only design work. It doesn’t have to be. Screenshot an analytics dashboard. Write a case study on setting up your first AI workflow — what worked and what didn’t. Anything that shows how you think.
And please, get your own website. “It would always surprise me how many marketers didn’t have their own website.” I’d ask for a portfolio and get a Dropbox link.
Grab your first and last name as a domain, set up WordPress (it’s free, you just pay for hosting), and build something. If that feels like a lot, Wix or Squarespace will get you there faster. Then connect Google Analytics, embed a Mailchimp or HubSpot signup form, and set up an automated welcome email. Nobody may subscribe, and that’s fine. You now know how to connect a website to a CRM — and that’s a real skill.
WordPress powers over 40% of the web, and most of the sites we build at BRJ run on it. I’ve had candidates mention they built a WordPress blog like it was no big deal. It’s a big deal. Put it on your résumé. If a new grad told me they knew how to connect Google Analytics to a website, I’d think, “Wow, you are ahead of 95% of these kids.”
Once you build something, record a Loom walking through it. My team teases me because I send walkthrough videos constantly, but it works. The more you talk through your work, the more natural it feels when you’re on an interview call.
Getting Started with AI
“Don’t marry yourself to one frontier model.” Play with Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT and see what you like. We mostly use Claude at BRJ.
Once you’re comfortable prompting, build your first skill. A skill trains the AI to do a specific task your way, so you’re not “at the mercy of what Claude thinks is best.” I have one that reviews our revenue and reports it to my sales team, fonts and all. I just tell it to run.
From there, try a recurring skill. Mine is a daily brief that pulls from Slack, email, Monday.com, our CRM, and my calls — and emails me every morning with priorities and anything that slipped through the cracks. “It’s almost like I have my own personal secretary.” Agents are the next step, running a bunch of those skills on their own without you prompting each one.
Build one, write it up, put it on your website, and record the walkthrough. That’s a technical skill and a soft skill in one project.
Good luck out there. And if you want to talk marketing, reach out. I’m happy to help.
Interested in joining the Big Red Jelly team? Check out our open positions and send us your portfolio. Yes, your website counts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Should I start my marketing career at an agency or in a corporate role?
Both are valid. Corporate marketing tends to offer lower stress, more defined processes, and sometimes better pay, but you’ll often own one specific function. Agency life means variety, faster learning, and exposure to dozens of clients and industries — but also more pressure. If you love branding, are comfortable with ambiguity, and want to grow fast, an agency is worth the tradeoff.
What certifications should a marketing student get before graduating?
At minimum: Google Ads, Google Analytics, and Meta Ads certifications. These are free or low-cost and signal to agency owners that you can come in and immediately do something useful. Bonus points for HubSpot certifications and hands-on experience with the Adobe Creative Suite or a CRM.
What soft skills matter most in a marketing career?
Communication, presentation, account management, and the ability to sell your work. The ability to pitch an idea and build trust with a client is often the difference between someone who stays in an execution role and someone who advances into leadership. As AI takes over more technical tasks, these human skills become more valuable, not less.
Why do I need my own website as a marketer?
Because it proves you can do what you say you can do. Building a personal site, connecting Google Analytics, embedding a signup form, and setting up an automated email sequence is a real, demonstrable skill set that most recent grads don’t have. It also gives you something concrete to walk through in interviews, which builds the communication habit you’ll need in client-facing roles.
How should a marketing student start with AI tools?
Start by experimenting with Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini to get comfortable with prompting. Then build one specific skill — a trained task that produces a repeatable output your way. Document the process, put it on your website, and record a walkthrough. That single project demonstrates both a technical skill and a soft skill, which is exactly the combination that gets noticed.
