Getting into the media

So today I attended my 7th media related event with Go Think Big and I loved every minute of it. Go Think Big is an organization devoted to helping young people get a foot on the career ladder in the somewhat elusive media industry.

Since secondary school I have known that I want to work in the media industry but I have struggled to be able to pinpoint the exact career that I want to aim for after university. My determination was massively fuelled by my form tutor telling me that the industry was very difficult to get into and that I should consider other career options.

Sometimes I feel like Go Think Big was created for just me, they offer numerous work experience opportunities, skill days, networking events etc. They have helped me to gain access to a lot of professionals doing the kind of jobs that I am interested in, ranging from advertising, marketing, PR, journalism, digital, radio, HR and many more. I was actually first introduced to the site by Lucie Cave, the editor-in-chief of Heat magazine back in December 2012 at the Clothes Show when I asked her how she got her job.

Today's event was about learning about the job roles of four individuals representing Journalism, Radio, Digital and Marketing. The speakers then gave advice about how we (the audience) should go about getting a job like theirs. I am going to make this as brief as possible and stick to the one main lesson that I learnt from each speaker.

The first was Claire Maxted, Editor of Trail Running magazine

*The most important thing that I learnt from Claire is that when trying to get work experience, if people don't respond to your email, send them a few more but if that doesn't work just pick up the phone. It is a lot easier to ignore an email than it is a real life human being on the phone.

The second speaker was Paul Sylvester, Head of presentation at Absolute Radio

*Whilst working in radio isn't something that I have personally considered, I loved when he said that Radio presenters see their career as their life rather than a job, a good radio presenter will be thinking about material for their show 24/7 even when they are not on air and that when they are at work they don't feel like they are working. This is the dream for my future career!

The third speaker was Kieren Puffett, Editor at Parkers

*Kieren spoke of the importance of networking and backed up what he was saying with the statistic that 70% of all jobs are filled by networking! So it's definitely about who you know and not what you know

The fourth and final speaker was Katy Miller, Senior Digital Marketing Executive and Bauer.

*My favourite piece of advice from Katy was that the best way to shape my career would be to search my dream job, look at the person specification and then work on gaining the skills needed through work experience etc.

All in all I loved my day today and I have been inspired to apply for more work experience placements to get my foot in the door!