LSEJ Alumni Conference 2018

left to right – Rebecca Gleave, Callie Sowerby, Megan Hawkins

 

This years alumni event kick-started off with our returning graduates; Rebecca, Callie and Megan, on campus at the University of Lincoln. They presented their stories about their PR careers so far.

Megan Hawkins, one of this years alumni spoke to us about how she got her job she never really intended to end up in the field she did but one of her top tips Megan gave to us was to be open-minded about different jobs available as you may want to go into a certain field of PR but there are many other fields which give you different opportunities.

Callie Sowerby talked about the importance of graduate schemes as she was able to get her job through a graduate scheme which led her to a career at proactive PR where she started out as a junior account executive and now promoted she’s currently an account executive less than a year on in her career.

Rebecca Gleave, has been working at a PR firm called Garrett Keeler PR since July 2017, this involves her working with diverse range of tractor and heavy goods vehicles tyres. Rebecca’s PR is on a Business to business format so her aims on a day to day are different from the other guest speakers, she was able to shed light on working for the in house sector of the industry.  In the talk today she spoke how rewarding the job is and she mentioned her acquaintance with princess Anne at a transport charity event. She provided an inspirational and informative talk.

Overall the event went amazingly and motivated the first years to look ahead and third years to think positively about their future in PR.

Bring on next year!

 

 

 

Here at the LSJ Alumni 2018 Public Relations event, our guest speakers are all sharing valuable advice to get into the working world!

Our first speaker Rebecca Gleave, graduated in September 2017 and is now working at Garnett Keeler PR, she explains how different companies will have different styles of writing, and it will take time to adapt to the new working ways. She explains that Cygnet PR helped her the most and gave her valuable skills.

Callie Sowerby, an Account Executive at Proactive PR International tells us how important the six-month Proactive Pathway was for her future. Using her skills learned from experience with Cygnet PR and the Journalism and Public Relations course helped her to where she is today. The course gave her a good grounding so she was able to transition her Uni work to the real world.

Our last speaker is Megan Hawkins, a PR executive at The British Horse Society. Explaining her roles in her current job is making us excited for us to be in the PR field of work. With building relationships and writing content, learning about writing for different audiences helped Megan within her role.

Questions are now being asked all around from our interested audience. Learning that when looking for jobs, be patient, always ask questions, and be confident.

The main message all the speakers are sharing is that work experience is vital!

Now onto networking, cakes, and refreshments!

Follow us on all our social media for further updates:

Twitter: @lsjalumni

Instagram: @lsjalumni

Facebook: LSEJ Alumni Event 2018

#lsjalumni2018

Rebecca Gleave graduated from the University of Lincoln in 2017 with a 2:1 in Public Relations. Since graduating she has been working at Garnett Keeler PR which is a family-run agency that traditionally deals with the automotive B2B PR side of things. She has acquired previous experience through a number of internship opportunities such as Jellyfish Online Marketing as well as the University of Lincoln student run agency Cygnet PR.

Twitter – @rghr_gl

The school of English and Journalism will be hosting their annual alumni event tomorrow for Public Relations and Journalism Students. The event will be held in the MHT building at 1pm with a range of guest speakers attending to give an insight into the world of work for our students.

Callie Sowerby is currently an Account Executive at the B2B Public Relations agency, Proactive International PR.

Megan Hawkins graduated from Lincoln in 2016 with a first in PR and Journalism. She is now a PR Executive for The British Horse Society, the largest equestrian charity in the UK.

Rebecca Gleave has been working at Garnett Keeler PR since July 2017; a family-run agency that traditionally deals with the automotive B2B PR side of things

 

The afternoon will help current students bridge the gap between higher education and gaining a graduate job, hearing first hand experiences from our alumni. With a range of careers within the PR sector, our alumni are ready to tell their stories and answer any questions the students may have. We spoke with event organiser Sam Pidoux, a Public Relations and Journalism lecturer at the University, to hear about what the event will entail.

The event can be followed live on the conferences blog and social media pages – Twitter, Facebook and Instagram – using the hash tag #lsjalumni2018. There shall be a networking session with cake and refreshments provided by the Public Relations Society after the event. We look forward to seeing you there!

Megan graduated with a first in Journalism and PR from the University of Lincoln in 2016. This has kick-started her career in PR as she now works as a PR executive for the British Horse Society, the largest equestrian charity in the UK. This has enabled Megan to use her various skillset which she gained from her degree. In her time at the society she has worked with national newspapers as well as TV and radio stations.

 

Keep up with Megan on her Twitter account:

Tweets by meganhawkins95

 

 

Callie Sowerby graduated from the University of Lincoln with a Journalism and Public Relations degree in September 2017 after finding her love of media and Public Relations through her favourite TV show Ugly Betty.

Callie is currently an Account Executive at the B2B Public Relations agency, Proactive International PR. Callie’s role is to manage the PR strategies of a range of clients operating in different regions and sectors of the telecommunication and technology markets.

Twitter : @CallieSowerbyPR

 

Jonathan Holmes graduated from University of Lincoln in 2012 with BJTC and PCC accredited First Class BA (Hons) in journalism. He is a digital broadcast journalist. Originally this wasn’t something that he was planning on doing when he left university. He is main brief is to look after the digital content that sits on the Radio Bristol’s Facebook and Twitter page. That means editing, filming and a lot of working with Points West reginal TV.  Jonathan started out as a broadcast assistant on BBC Radio Bristol’s breakfast programme, but he’s completely left radio behind for the brave new world of digital content. He is basically doing a brand new job without changing BBC sites. He is also a Youtube Channel owner that gets a growing rate of 1,000 hits a day. His channel also just recently reached 2,000,000 views.

We are looking forward to hearing from him at the Alumni Conference!

You can follow us during our LSEJ Alumni 2017 Event tomorrow (February 22nd) on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We will be updating all the social media sites regularly through out the entire event. Just type in the hashtag to follow the event through out the whole day #lsjalumni2017

The day started off with the sun shining across the Brayford and Level 1 PR students entered the Cargill Theatre early at 1-1:30pm to set themselves up on the front row so to manage the social media pages for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
To start the event off, Jason Whittaker Head of English and Journalism, kick starts the day with a brief welcome talk. Leading on from this our keynote speaker and BBC Look East’s TV Journalist, Leigh Milner who graduated 10 years ago, gave a talk about how to successfully progress with your career after University. She began with showing us some of her work from her time at University, finished with her top tips and answered some interesting questions.

Angeline McCall spoke to us next through a highly-anticipated Skype call, which went without technical difficulties, we very much enjoyed hearing Angeline’s story of how she put herself out on the internet which successfully landed her a job at ABC-affiliate station. Following our talk with Angeline was a question and answer panel with Leigh Milner, Holly O’Finn and Jonathan Holmes, lots of very honest and useful answers were given by our panel which the current students found beneficial.

A quick ten-minute break to keep everyone refreshed is followed up by a pre-recorded Skype call from Dave Lee, unfortunately (as journalists do) Dave was busy on the job at the time of the call. However, he covered all the questions our students were burning to ask him and gave out useful advice about social media and how to utilise it. Our second question and answer panel was made up of alumni’s, Adam Tomlinson, Emma Wright, Ellie Smart, Hasina Sacranie, who careers are in PR which answered lots of questions for the PR students in the room.

The afternoon ended on a high note with mingling, tea and cakes!

We spoke with First Year Public Relations student, Rebecca Stacey, to see what she thought of the event and what she gained from it. Watch the interview below!