Marketing Without the Certificate: What 25 Years Taught Me

I was chatting to one of our media suppliers the other day, and she said something that stopped me in my tracks:

“It’s so refreshing to speak to someone who actually knows about marketing.”

At first I tittered - assuming she was just being polite. Then she explained that a lot of people she deals with don’t actually understand how marketing works; they just buy media.

That surprised me. Because honestly, I’ve never thought of myself as especially knowledgeable. I’ve never been formally trained in marketing — I don’t have a qualification hanging on the wall. What I do have, though, is over 25 years of hands-on experience working with some pretty big household names. And it turns out, that counts for something.

Experience teaches you things textbooks don’t

My background is in recruitment marketing, which is a specialism in itself. You’re not just selling a product or a service — you’re selling a workplace, an opportunity, a sense of belonging. You’re asking people to imagine themselves somewhere new. It’s emotional, nuanced, and fast-moving.

Over the years I’ve realised that recruitment marketing uses all the same techniques, tools and thinking as traditional marketing — just pointed in a slightly different direction. The psychology, the data, the creative hooks, the audience insight — it’s all there. You just have to think differently about what motivates people to act.

Imposter syndrome is sneaky like that

When the supplier made that comment, my first instinct was to downplay it. Surely everyone I deal with knows more than I do? But that’s imposter syndrome in a nutshell — you don’t notice how much you’ve learned because it’s become second nature.

I think a lot of experienced marketers (especially those who’ve learned on the job) feel this way. We’re so busy doing the work — making things happen, solving problems, adapting — that we forget we’ve built up a huge amount of skill and knowledge along the way.

Confidence doesn’t always come with a certificate

I’ve met plenty of people with qualifications who can quote frameworks, but freeze and go into panic or blame mode when a campaign doesn’t go to plan. Experience teaches you how to pivot, how to read people, how to make creative decisions under pressure.

And I’m not alone — in fact, over 53% of marketers say they have not studied a marketing-related academic or professional qualification of any kind. Marketing Week

So maybe I don’t have a formal marketing qualification. But I’ve spent decades learning, testing, failing, fixing, and succeeding — and that, I think, is worth a lot more.

Experience doesn’t always shout — but it’s worth listening to.