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!
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Yes after a week of being permanently confused as to why I hadn't fully joined the 21st century by not owning Taylor Swift's fifth album I finally caved and bought my deluxe edition last night for £14.99. I bought it from Amazon so I got my digital copy instantly, which has been on repeat for quite some time. My current favourites are Blank Space, Out Of The Woods and How You Get The Girl. I know these will change but right now I'm just so happy that I've finally understand what everyone's been going crazy over the last week and why Lena Dunham named October 27th (the album's release date) National Taylor Swift day!
