What is Acadium?
Acadium is a platform where one can get hands-on training and mentorship on various aspects of digital marketing. It gives you tools to support your digital marketing career. Acadium believes that you can learn from anywhere in the world, get the experience and kickstart your career without any obstacles like price, schedule, and location.
How does Acadium work?
Businesses sign up to their platform to hire digital marketing apprentices remotely and mentor them, while marketers sign up to enhance their skills. Mentors hire apprentices for 10 hours a week for 3 months and guide them in their respective fields of expertise. Apprentices do not get paid for the mentorship they receive, however, if the mentor wants to continue further they have to hire the apprentice and get them paid and it is done outside the platform. At the end of the apprenticeship, the mentors release completion certificates along with references. Apprentices can share those certificates on LinkedIn. Acadium also provides freelancing opportunities for their apprentices once they had done several apprenticeships and gained relevant experiences to earn extra income. They can also build their portfolio by completing the tasks offered by different businesses for free.
Can I get approved for entry level marketing apprenticeship?
Yes, you can get approval on the platform as an entry-level marketer as the mentors you work with are willing to teach you. However, the platform is not very welcoming for a complete newbie, and mentors want you to know at least something about their field of expertise too. You can enhance your skills by taking different marketing courses paid or free online. Get the digital marketing certifications done on the field of your choice and start applying for the apprenticeships in the niche you did your certifications to get hands-on experience. You can also take courses through their platform itself but the courses are not deep enough to get the maximum value. So look out for the courses elsewhere and learn from anywhere you can.
What is Acadium Plus?
Acadium Plus is a premium service to those students who are willing to learn an intensive course that offers you a job placement in the end as well as build your portfolio. It is not free unlike the apprenticeship, you have to pay $3,499 to enroll in the course. You also have an option to split the payment or pay 10% of your salary every month for 24 months period (currently only available for US residents).
How to get approved in Acadium?
As mentioned above, for a newbie get the digital marketing certifications and start building your portfolio. Someone who is studying marketing, looking for mentorship, and has some experience or portfolio can apply for the apprenticeship. You need to sign up to their platform, fill up the details and upload your up-to-date CV with all the experiences and portfolio you have built. A good CV is a way forward to get approved to become an apprenticeship.
What next?
Once you get approved, you can now look for the mentors who are posting the jobs in your field of interest. Start applying and approaching the mentors, they are likely to schedule a meeting with you and hire you. Once they hire you, they give you certain tasks for a week or a month, depending on the kind of nature of the job and business. In the end, you get the certification or end up getting hired full-time.
After working with 3-4 apprenticeships over a period of time you can get a good portfolio and skill to work in the real world. You can now apply for the jobs outside as you have gained some experience or also apply as a freelancer on their own platform. When you get approved, you can also earn money from Acadium itself. Sounds, cool? Yes, it does. However, it’s not easy to get in there. Make sure you find the right business and mentor to guide you. If you have any problem during the apprenticeship, contact Acadium support, they are quick to fix things.
My experience with Acadium as a Apprentice
I joined Acadium back in 2019 when it was called GenM. I did 4 apprenticeships with different companies worldwide remotely for 3 months each. I took two apprenticeships at a time not on the same date but started on different dates like a month further or so. I was able to manage it somehow given the time zone restrictions. I guess I was determined to try it out. For me, I just wanted to try out the platform, gain more experience and exposure. As I was already in this space for quite some time, it was not hard for me to get my CV approved. I applied for the opportunity posted which were relevant to my experience or I was willing to learn new things. I was hired with just one interview with all the mentors.
While it was nice to be accepted by the mentors, some of the mentors were slow to reach due to their schedules. They were great with their work and hired you to do small stuff as they are aware that you might not know big things. As an experienced marketer, the platform may be a turn-off but for freshers, those small things matter as well.
I must admit, not all the mentors were slow, some were really receptive and appreciated my efforts. I got good reviews as well for that. I had a good client relationship, I am still in contact with some of them and help them when they need me.
Overall, I can say that Acadium is a great tool for remote digital marketing apprenticeship opportunities for freshers worldwide. And if you are smart enough to figure out a good mentor, you will be able to build a good portfolio. If you are lucky, you might land a job in the end.