Author: Lucy May Williams

Q: How do you go about applying for internships?

A: Lucy – It depends what kind of internship and what type of company. You can log onto portals and register interest through there. Don’t upload a 7 page CV – it’s pointless and won’t be read. Be concise.

Dave – Go onto career pages and browse available opportunities. At sky we offer a range of platforms and offer 2 week work experience programmes. Everyone says the same thing – hard working and enthusiastic – we want to see experience at the top. 2 sides of A4 is the maximum.

Shradha – You are selling yourself. It’s got to be about you and show your personality. Save some experience to talk about at the interview.

 

Q: What would you say is the biggest change from Journalism/PR to Marketing?

A: Lucy – There is a lot. You won’t understand the key skills until you’re in a work place. Be open minded. You need to apply different skill sets into a completely different job – it’s difficult.

 

Q: What experiences are you glad that you took?

A: Dan – Writing a blog is a great experience. It helps you develop your skills in writing. It creates a good portfolio and shows people your talents in writing.

Jono – Doing hospital radio was great. Once walking round the hospital I found out that the headphones by the bed didn’t even work – so I had been presenting for over a year to no one.

 

Q: How important are portfolios?

A: Besma – So important. Every graduate applies for internships so you need to stand out.

Jono – I am incredibly unorganised, I don’t know where most of my work is. I am usually just lucky.

Dan – Keep newspaper cuttings, every single one from day one. It’s different and shows what you can do in an alternative to a CV.

Lucy – Keeping track of what you’ve done over the years. Having a reference outlining mini profiles of what you’ve done it great. Write about the aims and outcomes.

Shradha – To be honest I don’t have a portfolio, most of the stuff I do is on my blog. Keep in contact with people from networking events.

Dave – They’re hugely important. We need to know how you sound.  Produce a package of around a minute, maybe even include an interview to demonstrate how you handle them.

 

Q: How much have you engaged in social media in your job?

A: Dave – Twitter can be your best mate and your worst enemy. You have access to information instantly. It’s a very useful tool. We are in a completely new age. You have to go through vigorous checks before you post anything found on social media. Editorial control is vital in the way we handle social media.

Shradha – I look after 3 social media accounts. It is very difficult to make construction interesting. You need to know your audience and how to make something like ‘A day at the waste’ interesting. It’s just about getting your information out there. Even 1 retweet is good!

Lucy – Our tweets have to go through a 9 chain approval process, so the act of tweeting isn’t really done. Working in a highly controlled area social media is difficult. Social media and everything you put out there can be found – be really mindful of what you out out there.

Dan – Social media is the perfect way to engage with your readers. However it can bring back positive and negative results. Everyone has twitter and the littles thing can reach you, you have to watch out for red herrings so check your sources.

Jono – We are the best at social media according to stats. If in an interview you said you weren’t interested in social media you would not get the job. We often use social media before the radio, it is a completely different outlook.

Besma – We’re a small company so social media is a very useful tool when making documentaries. It’s a must.

 

Q: Do you strict guidelines as what you can put on social media?

A: Dave- We won’t run a story unless we are 100% sure that it’s fact. You have to check and check and check again.

Jono – If we say it on the radio then we would tweet it, if we wouldn’t say it on the radio we wouldn’t tweet it.

Lucy –  It can cause the most amazing storm.

 

Q: What are the most likely pitfalls we will face?

A: Lucy – It’s hard work. Life at university is exciting and work out of university is fast paced and hard.

Shradha – Manage your expectation, you won’t get the job you want straight out of university.

Dave – Patience is key. You can be disheartened by rejections but don’t be. Don’t run before you can walk. You have to be prepared to travel.

Jono – Don’t always chase money, do what you want to do. Go into where you want to be, don’t follow the money.

Dan – You’ve got to be prepared to take rubbish jobs, you have to work your way up from the bottom.

Lucy – No one will do it for you, you have to do it yourself. Don’t compare yourself to your friends. You have to make it happen.

 

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Shradha is new to her job and currently works as a Communications Officer within the University.

Before she graduated she gained contacts and experience from our very own Jane Crofts! She worked as a PR in a small company completely by herself – she explains how she had no one to ask directly so learnt and grew a lot in her time there.

“Luck, contacts and not giving up.”

She turned down a job at the university in the hope that another one would crop up. Luckily this paid off and she managed to score the job she has now.

Shradha says that experience is crucial for PR – she knew from working as part of a student run team for Lincs Live that she was good at PR and that it was something she wanted to do in the future.

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Dan explains how he struggled with shorthand at university, he didn’t realise that you really had to work at it! He also mentions how many doors the skill opens up for you.

He always wanted to work in sport, Dan loves being the person that people can talk to about sport in his local community. He loves talking to the locals and making contacts.

Obviously as he doesn’t work with a large scale company so he doesn’t meet many celebrities but when he does it’s very exciting.

Dan says that politics is fun, he likes hearing two sides of the story and battling people off one another.

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Lucy says her job is very complex as she works in the corporate world. She works in the Health Care industry and finds it very interesting, working in blood control she refers to herself as a “vampire”.

“Just because you do one thing at university, that doesn’t mean that’s what you have to go on to do.”

Top Tip: Communicate!

It’s not all work in the corporate world! You do get to travel and party.

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Jono says his love for radio started from the age of 3, creating radio shows in his bedroom with his Spice Girls tape! He says that Chris Moyles was a big inspiration for him, he had a go at being like him but says that he was “crap!”.

He worked at Drive Time on BBC Lincolnshire local radio station in a team of two, he says that it was great fun and they came up with silly ideas and things to do.

 

Jono explains how Lincoln equipped him perfectly for a future in journalism. It’s all about taking risks he says.

Top Tip: Get experience!

He originally didn’t want to do Journalism and came to Lincoln studying Product Design but then realised he couldn’t draw.

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Besma explains how in her third year she had to produce a documentary film – she chose to focus on the Tunisia revolution. Besma had to beg her lecturer to let her go out there, but eventually was allowed to go, she went with her dad as she cannot speak a word of Arabic.  She interviewed and filmed many people over the two weeks she was there, including those who had lost family members and been injured.

In third year she had no social life! Working constantly and on her trip she filmed constantly and found the experience enjoyable but also very stressful – she came back with 24 tapes worth of footage!

She now works with fellow students Josh and Oli making documentaries – although only a small company she loves it! However getting funding is difficult, but she says there is a lot of funding out there.

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Besma

Sadly working as a freelance means he has to rush back to London and do some work urgently. He has no idea when and where work will turn up – which he says can be quite worrying.

He is currently doing a quick Q&A and explaining how he gained experience and made his way to where he is now.

Talking about his career and how he got the opportunity to work at the NFL!

“I should probably retire, it doesn’t get much better than this!” – His thoughts after working at the NFL in Los Angeles.

He did a BA in International Politics which he didn’t enjoy too much! He played a lot of sport at uni which he said got him through it. He took a year out gaining experience and travelling before applying for a MA in Sports Journalism at the University of Lincoln.

Having a broad knowledge of sport allows you to work a lot more – and opens up more opportunities. However, as long as you research events and sports before working for them you should be okay.

Top Tip: Study the way presenters work for that certain field. For example if you’re covering a football match try and listen to the way it is presented.

Being able to name drop is something he loves about his job! He gets to travel a lot and finds that people are often interested in what he does.

“Don’t be put down by rejections.”

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Dave has created a exciting and intriguing presentation using video and soundbites to make sure everyone is engaged and listening – it seems to be working!

He talks about how crucial networking is and how he got to where he is today, including tales of how he once got a lift home from Harry Redknapp!

Top lines are crucial! They need to be hard hitting and grab the readers attention.

It is not all plain sailing – his local radio station were reluctant to take him on originally but eventually they gave him a break. Dave explains how he learnt a lot there about decision making and which stories were worth taking a risk on.

Dave talks about the trials and tribulations that he faced with radio editing and which parts to cut and which parts to keep to ensure an interesting story.

He now works at Sky providing international news as Editor – a role he achieved in 2013. He has around 20 people in his team, he work on providing mainly entertainment news as well as sport. Sky is a very cultural channel and provides information across all

“Radio itself is a very resilient medium… it is a very powerful medium which is why it continues to grow.”

He got the opportunity to interview people at Westminster, including figures such as David Cameron and Nigel Farage, an experience which has provided him great experience for the future.

Dave was working on Boxing Day in 2004 when the tsunami hit Indonesia. It was a very unusual story amongst fairly ordinary ones, it grabbed his attention straight away, he was on the front line trying to get all of the information that was coming in to his desk out on the air.

Deaths of famous people such as Michael Jackson and Amy Winehouse were crucial stories for commercial radio.

A top tip: Be honest and concise on your CV.

What a great and informative talk! Questions can be asked later on.

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