I did not grow up dreaming of becoming a marketer. Originally from Kazakhstan, I was the kind of student who was always focused on doing well. I was an A+ student for most of my life, earned scholarships in high school and university, and followed the path that many people around me considered “successful”: study hard, get good grades, choose a practical degree, and figure the rest out later. So I studied business. The only problem was that I had no idea what I actually wanted to do. For a long time, I was so focused on studying and achieving that I never really stopped to ask myself: What does Aiman like? I knew how to work hard. I knew how to get good grades. I knew how to meet expectations. But when it came to choosing a career path, I felt lost. I tried different things. I studied computer science. I learned analytics. I explored business courses. I kept hoping that one subject would suddenly click and give me a clear answer. It did not happen that way. As an international student in Canada, I also had lots, and lots of bills to pay. So I started working wherever I could. At one point, I had three jobs. I was not following a perfect career strategy. I was simply trying to support myself, gain experience, and take whatever opportunities came my way. One of those opportunities became my first marketing role. It was with The Unicorn Factory, a freelance marketplace in Canada. I started doing basic marketing work: social media, blog writing, outreach, and customer relationship management. At the time, I did not fully realize that this was the beginning of a career path. I was just doing the work, learning as I went, and trying to be useful. But something about it stayed with me. From there, I got my next opportunity as a Website Assistant at Carleton University, where I managed content on a custom WordPress website. That role helped me understand the connection between content, user experience, and digital communication. Eventually, I joined REALTOR.ca and CREA, the Canadian Real Estate Association, where I continued building my experience in digital marketing.
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