Getting your first job in digital marketing is harder than it used to be. This article is a genuine offer of help to improve your chances of making a shortlist, making a strong impression at interview, and landing your first role.
To be clear, this isn’t a post about working for us as we’re not currently recruiting for graduate roles atm, but we know how competitive the market is and decided to offer a small number of graduates practical help to prepare.
The aim is to help your CV and application stand out so you’re more likely to be invited to an interview and to give you real interview experience.
For nine individuals, we’ll review your CV, conduct an interview as we would with any prospective employee, and give you practical feedback on how you performed and where you could improve.
If this sounds useful, details on how to apply are at the bottom of the article.
We’ve been in business for 25 years and have employed many graduates straight from university. Watching people develop their skills in their first role is a rewarding part of what we do.
Some of those graduates are still with us. Others have moved on to roles client-side and agency-side, many now in senior positions. A few have even gone on to set up and run their own agencies.
We’re not the biggest digital agency in the UK, but building and sustaining what we have over 25 years takes discipline, consistency, and a focus on building high performing teams. We have strong client retention because our work performs, week in, week out — and that experience has shaped how we think about hiring.
Not particularly. We’ve hired graduates from Russell Group and non–Russell Group universities. Some institutions carry more prestige than others, but we wouldn’t screen candidates based on league tables or university grouping.
What matters more is the CV itself and how the application is presented.
We’ve hired marketing graduates, but we also really value graduates from non marketing courses. Business management, History, English, Psychology, Maths and similar subjects all help build transferable skills.
In short, yes.
Grades are a useful indicator of your ability to take on new information and apply it. Think of it this way: a three month university module isn’t unlike starting a three month project in a new role - there’s a lot to learn quickly and apply in practice.
On a graduate CV, we’ll look at predicted grades, individual modules and A levels results.
There’s plenty of advice out there, but the core principle is to make it easy for someone to find the information they need.
Some basics we look for include
Not every application requires a cover letter, but they’re useful for reinforcing key points from your CV and showing you’ve read and understood the application requirements. Not following basic instructions is an easy way for some employers to screen candidates out early in the process so attention to detail matters.
We read cover letters, but they’re rarely the sole reason someone progresses or doesn’t. They do, however, help build an early impression.
Yes and no.
Relevant work experience is useful if you have it, whether through summer jobs or placements. But a lack of formal experience isn’t a problem for graduate roles. What matters more is how you demonstrate interest, capability, and potential.
AI tools are now part of daily life and we use tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity regularly, as do many teams.
This isn’t new — the industry has been evolving for years. Tools change, workflows change, but people are still needed to think, judge, prioritise and make decisions.
Become proficient in these tools. It’s not just about using them to rewrite text, work out what clever things you can get them to do. Many like ChatGPT offer free training and having demonstrable skills in AI will make you stand out.
This phrase appears a lot in applications, often without evidence.
The simplest way to demonstrate genuine interest is to do some training. It will help differentiate you, strengthen your CV and enable you to have a much better conversation at interview.
For Google, there are free digital marketing courses and particularly the Google Ads ecosystem courses. Getting certified in the various Google Ads disciplines will make you relevant for any employers that do paid digital advertising.
Outside of Google, Udemy offers many courses and we use the Ultimate Google Ads training course to give new graduates a grounding in Google Ads. It’s 35+ hours of training. At time of writing there’s a small fee (£20) for this course, and although material can be out of date quite quickly - it’s a decent course to get you up to speed with the concepts that underpin Google Ads.
For Facebook and Instagram, Meta Blueprint offers good beginner and intermediate courses and of course there are the Tik Tok Shop courses and Amazon courses if you want to learn how to advertise on those platforms.
If you're interested in analytics, start with the Google Analytics training for GA4 as a significant proportion of websites will use GA4 as their analytics platform. If you’re interested in data and visualisation, learn Looker Studio - many companies will use this or a similar tools to visualise marketing data.
The point is that taking these courses will make you more knowledgeable, demonstrate commitment, interest in the role, and help to differentiate you from other candidates.
We’re offering nine individuals the opportunity for a CV review, interview and a feedback session.
To be considered, please submit your CV and a cover letter to careers@strangecorp.com by 28 February 2026. For short listed candidates the process will start in March with interviews taking place in April, May and June.
In your cover letter, please include
Describe a digital experience (good or bad) you’ve had in the last six months that changed how you think about marketing.
This offer is open to individuals graduating in 2026 from a UK university, with the right to work in the UK.
If you prefer to speak with someone, call 01202 203160 or if you'd like to book a 30 min meeting to see if we can help just let us know and we'll arrange a call with one of our Directors.