Sara Al Quraini: Getting certified in digital marketing helped me restart my career!

Sara Al Quraini is an AstroLabs Academy Member and our Digital Marketing Certification Course Alumni. She experienced a career roller-coaster in the last 2 years. She first took a brave step to leave her stable job to start freelancing but COVID-19 ruined that plan. Getting certified in digital marketing helped her to become confident and demonstrate the right skills to land her dream job as Digital Marketing Executive. Read on as she shares in-depth about her growth journey.

Eight and half months of job-seeking

In March 2020, I left a stable job as a Marketing Executive that I loved to freelance and grow my career, not foreseeing the lock-down that happened 2 days after my final day. Projects had stopped, people everywhere were losing their jobs, and no new opportunities were arising. For 8 and a half months, I was unemployed, looking for projects, building my own projects, and finally looking for a stable corporate position again.

By December 2020, vacancies began opening up, but the competition was higher than ever and company demands and expectations were much higher for each and every position out there.

I was determined to find something at least related to Digital Marketing which was the field I was aiming for. Over the years I had grown a deep interest for the subject, and I had taught myself Digital Marketing over a period of 6 years but had never gotten hands on professional experience with it. I had worked in Marketing and in Design before, but after 8 months of no work and without proper credentials or qualifications, it was difficult to prove to any company that I was up to the task.

“This manager will never let me grow”

I landed a job in Graphic Design with worldwide known brand in December 2020. I needed a foot back in the corporate world. However, my pursuit didn’t end there. I was hoping to grow in the company and find the position I was looking for, but unfortunately, I had a very discouraging manager who favored people and put me down every chance she got.

During my third month review the manager mistreated me, undermined, and undervalued my work, and knocked my confidence to the ground. And at this point I knew that there was no way that person was ever going to let me grow.

I was determined to find a role in digital marketing. After months of searching, countless job applications and CV updates, and tedious job interview processes for 4 different companies to whom I had completed large projects for without getting the job, I was on the verge of giving up my search and settling. Until I came across the Digital Marketing course post by AstroLabs on Facebook.

Courses that made me believe in myself again

After many years of research by myself without getting the results I wanted, I decided that it was time that I learned the material from a legitimate, credible source and actually get qualified or certified for it, which is a challenge to achieve. So I took the course and followed it up with a Social Media Bootcamp course after that.

After both courses, I got my strength back and believed in myself again. I was officially able to say I am certified in Digital Marketing and Social Media and backed it up with the correct knowledge.

I felt much more capable and soon attracted 2 new opportunities for myself. One of which I had the confidence to turn down for the first time as I had learned it from the course to set my own expectations from a job and wasn’t afraid to say no. And the second one, I landed! And in the exact field I had been looking for all this time. I am now a Digital Marketing Executive at a respectable firm of the perfect size and company dynamic.

The course made my vision clearer, helped outline objectives & encouraged me to further growth.