From Growth Hacking Trainee to Growth Marketer at an agency

How did you end up at The Talent Institute?

I’ve always wanted to work in digital marketing. But this is something I really missed in my studies. I did my internship at Rituals and worked on their social media channels, but that was basically my only touch point with digital. We learnt a bit about copywriting and marketing, but we didn’t really become digital professionals.

After I graduated from my Master’s I really thought: ​‘Now what?’ I didn’t want to work in HR or policy at all. I then found out about The Talent Institute’s Growth Hacking Traineeship.

I really liked their way of hiring. You don’t have to know a lot or have a lot of skills. You just need to be young and have a lot of energy and motivation to learn. The Talent Institute offers the training and you get to put it into practice at one of the many companies they work with. I really thought this was a great opportunity, so after I graduated I jumped on it immediately.

Which company did you get matched to?

I was assigned to RocketX, an online marketing agency specialized in growing scale-ups. I secretly wanted this before the matching event even started, because I had the idea that I’d learn a lot from working for an agency. I also got a good impression from their website and from the people that already worked there. At the matching event we clicked and luckily they chose me.

How did the traineeship go?

It all went really smooth. Most of the team at RocketX are between 25 and 35 years old. And, a lot of them were also alumni of The Talent Institute. Even the cofounder of RocketX has done the growth hacking traineeship.

I ended up in a growth marketing team with a lot of The Talent Institute alumni and that really helped. They knew were I was coming from and what the program entails. They also understand that you’re still learning.

In my first week I was assigned to my first client. I was there for the onboarding and together with a senior growth marketer I worked on different assignments for that client. I did a lot of online courses and learnt the ins and outs of HubSpot. I also got to see how other growth marketers worked for their clients.

And then… you got hired!

Yes, that’s what RocketX actually said from the beginning: our goal is to hire you after you complete the traineeship. And that’s pretty motivating as a trainee. If you know you can keep working for the company, you’ll automatically try and put in your best efforts. Eventually they offered me a contract and I’m now a growth marketer with roughly 5 clients!

So, a good choice after all?

Definitely. But if I’m being completely honest: you never really know what to expect from programs like this. Especially with the term ​‘growth marketing’, I sometimes don’t even know how to explain what is is myself. It sounds so vague. Growth Hacking even more so, as people think I’m hacking systems in a bunker somewhere.

It all really worked out well for me. I really enjoy growth marketing, I like the company I work for, I enjoyed my time at The Talent Institute. I even ended up with some new friends, even though you’re only together for 3 weeks.