A brutally honest review of the HubSpot Marketing Software certification: And more importantly, companies that require it for your mid-senior level role
After getting my HubSpot certifications in Inbound Marketing, Email Marketing, and Content Marketing my graduating year, I thought I was good. The tests were easy. After a decade of reading blogs from Martech Zone, Marketing Profs, Moz, SEJ, SEM Rush, Ahrefs, Litmus, Salesforce, Hoostuite, Social Media Examiner, about three dozen more.
Do I really need another certification from HubSpot?
Yes. In the year of our lord 2023. Even with eight years of digital marketing experience.
Only with the HubSpot Marketing Software certification will hundreds of companies recognize your other experience. So, I committed to it. I promised a recruiter that I would get the damn Software cert over the weekend – just to secure a second interview.
After attempting a restless night of sleep on a sober Friday, four months into a job search filled with rejections, I woke up to start the estimated six hours of HubSpot Marketing Software certification education. What fun.
What did I learn?
My bright and sunny Saturday morning started like this: Sign in. Navigate to the course. Start the first video. Ace the first three quizzes. Mumble in confusion at the first few chapters. Double check the course name. Refresh the page. Mumble some more.
This was the same basic marketing shit I learned eight years ago. Frustrating. Well, maybe the course gets into the weeds later on. I thought I’d be learning how to use HubSpot’s proprietary coding language (aka HubSpot Markup Language aka HubL aka Hubble) to code emails and web pages.
(Why is Hubble used instead of the universal HTML and CSS, you ask? I fear only the HubSpot Developer Gods know. It’s only used within the HubSpot univers and no where else that I’ve found. The self-contained code is the only thing I didn’t know – and didn’t learn – from this course.)
Alas, a lot of companies are asking for this certification because a lot of companies use HubSpot. And after all, I promised that recruiter. At least I can watch it at 2x speed.
Fast forward an hour and a half of beautiful weather later and I’m nearly through the course. What the hell. I haven’t learned anything except what a few screenshots of the software looks like. And what I have seen is all drag-and-drop.
Do billion dollar companies and Series D startups really just want to make sure I don’t have severe carpal tunnel syndrome? Nice of them, but surely not.
In short, I learned a few phrases that HubSpot likes to use and nothing I didn’t already know.
Taking the the test
Is this whole certification a farce or will the test be more difficult? Thirty minutes will tell.
And they did. Aside from some new HubSpot-specific vernacular, I passed the test in under 29 minutes. Confused the whole time due to the layman nature of the entire certification process. I went for a walk to shake off the feeling that I just spent my beautiful Saturday reviewing marketing principles from the early 2010’s.
Final rating
One star. The HubSpot Marketing Software certification lacked anything I didn’t already know. It didn’t provide any helpful knowledge of HubSpot Markup Language – the one thin I wanted to learn.
Half of a star for being a shorter summary of the Inbound Marketing, Email Marketing, and Content Marketing courses I’ve already taken. Very convenient for anyone who doesn’t want to take these longer courses.
And another half for the certification. It’s free. I can put it on my resume. A useless waste of time for anyone with 5+ years of experience and already knows what they’re doing.
I’m either:
A. Astonished that a manager would have this as a requirement or even a “Preferred qualification” in a job description. Or,
B. Sorry that the manager isn’t aware of the insignificant knowledge this course provides for someone who’s been in the industry for over five years.
Hated it.
Credit: Oladimeji Ajegbile https://www.pexels.com/@diimejii