Employers hiring junior marketers want a portfolio, not a qualification

Last updated: October 2026 · Written by Adrian Prokopiec, founder of 20 Minute Marketing · 7 min read

The straight answer: Adrian Prokopiec, founder of 20 Minute Marketing, argues that employers hiring junior marketers care more about a portfolio than a qualification. A qualification tells a hiring manager you studied marketing. A portfolio shows them you can do the job they are hiring for. When the two compete for attention at the junior level, the work wins, although some graduate programs and government roles still filter on degrees first.

What I actually mean by "portfolio beats qualification"

I run digital marketing for two national brands and I've spent more than 25 years working in marketing with major Australian brands. My opinion on junior hiring is simple: a junior marketer is hired to do things. Write the email. Build the landing page. Set up the campaign. Pull the report on Monday morning and explain why the numbers moved. A qualification is a proxy for whether you can do those things. A portfolio is direct evidence.

I'm not saying qualifications are worthless. I'm saying that when a hiring manager has two junior applicants in front of them, one with a certificate and nothing to show, and one with a modest qualification (or none) plus three pieces of real work they can talk through, the second person is usually the safer hire. The portfolio reduces the hiring manager's risk. That's the whole game at junior level.

What the research says, and what it doesn't

The direction of travel is towards skills. LinkedIn's Economic Graph team modelled what would happen if employers hired on skills rather than on degrees and job titles. Its Skills-Based Hiring report (March 2025) estimates a skills-first approach could expand talent pools 6.1 times globally, and 7.7 times in Australia.

I want to be careful here, because that is a model of what could happen, not a measure of what employers are doing. Real-world change is slower. A joint study by Harvard Business School and the Burning Glass Institute, reported in February 2024, found that fewer than 1 in 700 new hires in 2023 benefited from US employers dropping degree requirements. Many companies announced the change and then hired the same way they always had.

So here is how I read the evidence. Removing "degree required" from an ad does not, on its own, change who gets hired. What changes outcomes is giving the hiring manager something better to judge you on. That's exactly what a portfolio does. The research is less a promise that degrees no longer matter and more a hint about where the opening is: in the gap between what an ad says and what the person reading your application actually needs to see.

Don't take my word for it: run the SEEK test

You can check my opinion in about 20 minutes. Open SEEK, search for junior or entry-level marketing roles in your city, and read ten ads all the way through. For each one, tally what it asks for under these headings.

Then compare the first row with the rest. Whatever your count turns out to be, the last row is the useful one: it's a shopping list for your portfolio, written by the people who will read it.

📚 Want to know what entry-level ads ask for? See our breakdown of digital marketing jobs with no experience and what they ask for.

What a junior marketing portfolio should contain

A junior portfolio doesn't need to be big. It needs to be real, specific and easy to scan. My view is that three to five pieces is plenty, as long as each one shows a skill from the ads you just tallied.

• One paid campaign, even a tiny one. A small Meta or Google Ads test for a friend's business, a club or your own side project. Show the goal, targeting, ad copy, spend and results.
• One piece of written content. A blog post, email or landing page you wrote, with a note on who it was for and what it was meant to do.
• One piece of analysis. A short report from GA4 or a social platform's insights, with three plain-English observations and one recommendation.
• One audit. Pick a local business website and write a one-page review of its SEO basics, speed and calls to action.
• One honest failure. Something that didn't work, what you think went wrong and what you'd test next. This is the piece hiring managers remember.

Put it on a simple one-page site or a shared folder, and link it at the top of your CV. Every piece should answer three questions: what was the goal, what did you do, and what happened. If you can't answer the third question yet, say what you'd measure. If you're starting from zero, our guide to becoming a digital marketer in Australia without a degree walks through the first steps.

Where the other side has a point

It would be dishonest to pretend qualifications don't matter. They do, and in some places they come first.

Graduate programs exist to recruit graduates, so a degree is the entry ticket by design. Some government and large corporate roles screen on qualifications before a person ever looks at your work, often through formal selection criteria or automated filters. And the workforce itself is degree-heavy: Jobs and Skills Australia's profile of marketing specialists, based on the 2021 Census, shows about 70 per cent hold a bachelor degree or a postgraduate qualification. If you're competing in that pool, a degree is common, and lacking one can count against you at the first cut.

A degree also signals things a portfolio doesn't: that you can stick at something for three years, write at length and handle deadlines. Some hiring managers weight that heavily. That's fair.

Where I draw the line is this. A qualification can get your application past a filter. It rarely wins the job by itself. Even in degree-heavy pools, the applicant who can show and explain real work stands out from the stack of applicants who can only list subjects. If you have a degree, build a portfolio anyway. If you don't, the portfolio is how you compete. We compare the two paths in more depth in digital marketing class vs marketing degree.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a degree to get a junior marketing job in Australia?

Not always. Many junior marketing ads accept a degree or equivalent experience, and a portfolio of real work is the strongest form of equivalent experience. Graduate programs and some government roles do require a degree.

What should a junior marketing portfolio include?

Three to five pieces: a small paid campaign, a piece of written content, a short analytics report, a website audit and one honest failure. Each should state the goal, what you did and what happened.

How can I build a portfolio without a marketing job?

Use real but small projects: a friend's business, a community club, a side project or your own social accounts. A small budget, honestly reported, is better evidence than a perfect mock-up.

Is skills-based hiring actually happening?

Slowly. LinkedIn estimates skills-based hiring could expand Australian talent pools 7.7 times, but a Harvard Business School and Burning Glass Institute study found that fewer than 1 in 700 US hires in 2023 benefited from dropped degree requirements.

Are certificates as good as a portfolio?

No. In my view a certificate shows you learned something, while a portfolio shows you can apply it. Certificates help most when they sit next to work that uses the skill.

Related: Digital marketing jobs with no experience · How to become a digital marketer with no degree · Are Google and HubSpot certifications worth it?