How Stuart Boosted His Digital Marketing Salary After JobPrepped

Stuart Posternak had a marketing degree but felt something was missing: practical, real-world work experience. His college courses focused on marketing theory, leaving him little hands-on experience. When he discovered JobPrepped’s Digital Marketing Bootcamp, the modern, work experience-driven curriculum stood out. Unlike other digital marketing bootcamps, JobPrepped offered hands-on work experience, direct mentorship, and a recruiter network that helped Stuart land interviews and high-paying roles. Five years after graduating from JobPrepped, Stuart shares how his experience at JobPrepped continues to pay off.

You have a college degree in marketing, so what inspired you to enroll in the digital marketing program at JobPrepped?

I vividly remember being in marketing classes at college and learning all of these theories about marketing, but we never learned marketing skills. There was just one extremely rudimentary course in digital marketing. We spent more time talking about world trade and principles about conscientiousness — it was a lot of philosophy and history. It didn't give me a great foundation to get a job, let alone one I was excited about. I saw that the JobPrepped course would give me tangible tasks and skills across domains that I could add to my resume.

When I saw the JobPrepped curriculum, it was all the brass tacks of marketing in the modern day, not something that applied to marketing twenty years ago.

What stood out about JobPrepped compared to other digital marketing bootcamps?

It was the hands-on experience that got me. I could tell, based on the website, they knew what they were talking about, and the program would be able to give me a better shot at getting a higher-paying job. I would be able to get real-world experience for my resume whereas other digital marketing bootcamps were about theory.

What were your career goals when you enrolled at JobPrepped?

I initially wanted to get into programmatic marketing, but I’m so grateful that Joseph Blanco, the founder of JobPrepped, advised that I should get into PPC marketing. It has led me down a very rewarding career path working with Google Ads.

After college, I was open to any job, but I was surprised and disappointed at how hard it was to get an entry-level job. At JobPrepped, I learned that looking for entry-level jobs was not the right approach. Although it seems common sense to start with an entry-level job, it's a mistake because your skillset after college and JobPrepped is not entry-level. Plus, there's often no difference between “entry-level” and other marketing specialist positions that aren't called entry-level. If a role is entry-level, they also tend to have a much lower salary and it can set your career back 2-3 years. 

When you were enrolling at JobPrepped, did you need to know anything about digital marketing to get in?

Not at all! I use what I learned at JobPrepped far more than what I learned in four years at college. 

You graduated from JobPrepped a few years ago, but overall, what were some of the main skills or tools that you learned in the program?

The bootcamp is divided into many sections, which gave me a good understanding of each part of digital marketing. There was a social media marketing section, an email marketing section, and PPC and SEO marketing sections. There was a detailed section on writing cover letters and resumes, and how to prepare for interviews. To this day, I still have everything from JobPrepped saved on my computer to have as a tool at my disposal whenever I need it.

How much time did you dedicate to the bootcamp? Did you work while studying?

I focused fully on the program, doing the assignments like a full-time job. Focusing all of my attention and taking it seriously helped me get a lot out of the program. 

What were your instructors like at JobPrepped? Were they marketing professional professionals themselves?

Joseph Blanco was the main instructor I interacted with and he is a true marketing professional, especially his breadth of marketing knowledge. He keeps it simple and does a great job of helping you focus. I met with him once a week and we went over my assignment and he would give feedback. I could also ask questions about what we were learning or interviews I was preparing for.

What kinds of projects did you work on at JobPrepped?

The projects you do at JobPrepped are actually to help JobPrepped, which means you’re getting a lot of work experience  that you would need at any company. I got hands-on experience across many different verticals, which meant I got to try things out rather than do the same task over and over again. For example, at JobPrepped I worked in graphic design and SEO, and reached out to people on LinkedIn. I used a tool called LinkedIn Helper, which was a great intro to AI and automation. 

How did JobPrepped get you ready for the marketing job hunt?

Before JobPrepped, I would have sent the same resume to every job application. JobPrepped helped me modernize my approach to tailor each resume to the job that I'm applying for. I learned about the importance of cover letters, and where I should put my focus in my resume and job interviews. 

The other massive part of being at JobPrepped is their recruiting network. When I was first applying, I had to manually seek out, research, and craft my resume for hundreds of different roles. I would hope to hear back and have an interview only to hear hiring managers say they were looking for someone with agency experience. With the recruiting network at JobPrepped, the recruiters started reaching out to me! I didn't have to waste as much time sending out endless numbers of applications. The recruiting network also meant more high-quality roles with much higher pay on average than the non-recruiter roles.

I was also able to reach out to Joseph a year after graduating to say I was looking for a new role. He put me in touch with the recruiter network and I started getting flooded with opportunities. I was ecstatic to get the salary that I got, and it happened because of that recruiter network. I feel like you can't put a value on that kind of career support. People might focus on the course, but they may overlook the value of whether the program has a recruiter network.

What was the first marketing role you landed after completing the JobPrepped training?

I landed at a place called TriStar PLM Solutions. I was a digital marketing specialist, and I focused on SEO and Google Ads.

Has your JobPrepped experience helped boost your salary?

My first marketing job out of college started at $65K a year. After JobPrepped and because of their recruiter network, I landed a marketing role at $85K. I really focused and built my skillset to a higher level, so I was able to double my salary for the next role. After that, I was able to increase my salary by another 50%! 

I owe this salary bump in part to the help from the recruiter network and how Joseph at JobPrepped taught me to specialize in a certain part of marketing. Joseph's advice to specialize aggressively is what allowed me to increase my salary, and feel like I am truly delivering value for my company where I'm doubling my productivity and my output consistently.

Overall, have employers been interested in your JobPrepped experience?

Yes, they are because of the unique things that I have on my resume. I present my time at JobPrepped as a temporary contract position for three months. I don't feel I have to tell them that it was a bootcamp because I did work for the company. I can then be honest and say that I worked for JobPrepped and write down all those tasks I completed. 

What kinds of projects are you working on now as a Marketing Strategist at TryEden?

I  manage $750,000 a month in Google ad spend. I work on everything from helping sort out how we measure incrementality to budget-planning across channels. I'm really in the weeds on Google and Google Ads! I’ve done a ton of conversion rate optimization work using an A/B testing software, and also Merchant Center optimization. I was able to make a strong impact in that way. I also changed the strategy within Google Ads to focus on new customer acquisition that was impactful. I'm looking to expand into things like discount modeling and the ideal price to set a product.

You've been working in the marketing space for a few years now — do you feel that AI could be replacing marketers? Or are you seeing AI as a benefit to marketers?

I think it depends on the person. If you're someone who isn't offering unique value to the marketplace, then AI may replace your job. But for many other marketers, AI will make the work more efficient and effective. For me, if I leverage AI properly, it really helps. As technology improves, I think it will get more important.

For example, AI is great for data analysis. Marketers would have had to manually calculate a lot of that data in the past using Excel. With ChatGPT and other AI tools, you can feed the numbers and run a basic form of media mix modeling with regression analysis. I also use it if I’m going to present a strategy. I have a ChatGPT-bot that's trained to tell me how I can make my strategy concise, punchy, and not too long-winded.

At this point in your marketing career, was JobPrepped worth it for you?

It was something that allowed me to progress my career faster. My career has progressed more in five years than the average marketer does in a decade. I have tremendous gratitude for JobPrepped and the people I've been lucky to learn from. JobPrepped was the catalyst because without it I would have been set back early in my career. Rather than taking another job with the same salary, I got a job at a much higher salary right after the program. Before JobPrepped, if I didn’t like my job or the company I was working for, I could have been out of the workplace for months and I might have to take lower pay in my next role. JobPrepped has more than paid for itself many times over.

What is your advice to anyone thinking of getting into digital marketing now? Is there anything that you wish you had known sort of before day one of JobPrepped?

Joseph told me one specific thing that completely changed my career: pick a specialty and be the best at that one thing. I've had interviewers comment on how I’m thirty miles deep and five inches wide with my Google Ads knowledge, which is both a compliment and says I have room to grow, which we all do. I've become so specialized and been told that no one can hold a candle to me in that area because that's all I've focused on for years. There's a demand for true experts. There may be countless people who can run Google Ads and set up campaigns, but to be able to do it at the highest levels takes a lot more expertise outside the platform and touches so many different areas, from Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) to understanding incrementality, measurement, attribution, buyer's journeys, and user behavior. My advice to future marketers is the same thing that Joseph told me, which is to pick a skill that's valuable and double down on that. For me, that was Google Ads and that's given me the entry to higher levels of marketing and bigger roles. If I tried to be a generalist, I don't think I would have gotten as far.

Find out more and read JobPrepped on Course Report. This article was produced by the Course Report team in partnership with JobPrepped.