Yes, people get hired off the back of online courses every week. But plenty of others finish course after course and never get an interview. The difference is rarely the course content itself; it is what the course leaves you holding at the end.
What employers actually check
Hiring managers skim past the "certified in digital marketing" line on a CV in about two seconds. What makes them slow down is proof of work: a campaign you ran, a website you built, a report you wrote, numbers you moved. An online course that is all videos and quizzes gives you none of that. A course built around practical assignments gives you all of it.
The experience gap is the real problem
Most entry-level digital marketing ads ask for one to two years of experience. That is the wall online-only learners hit, and it is why we built a guaranteed 12-week placement into our own programme: Digital Marketing in Practice pairs a 12-week taught phase with 12 weeks of real marketing work inside a real organisation - digital marketing training with internship experience included - so the experience question is answered before it is asked.
How to make any online course count
If you study independently, close the gap yourself. Turn every module into a project for a real (or realistic) business. Build the website, run a small ad budget, write the email sequence, screenshot the analytics. Collect it in a simple portfolio - our guide on building a portfolio from scratch shows how.
The bottom line
Online courses can get you hired if they end in evidence and experience. Choose one that forces you to do the work, not just watch it - and if you want the workplace experience guaranteed rather than hoped for, that is exactly what our placement-backed course is for.