Undergraduate: Cathail’s Placement in Marketing at the School
Cathail Clarke is a BSc Business Management student who is currently working as a Marketing Assistant for the School in his placement year.
Why did you apply to become a Marketing Assistant at the School?
Marketing was of interest to me because it would allow me to use my creativity and problem-solving skills in a professional capacity. Studying a Bsc in Business Management influenced my decision as I had enjoyed completing the creative assessments for the Marketing and Digital Marketing modules.
What skills did you develop whilst on placement, and what were you responsible for?
In June 2022 I started working as a Marketing Assistant for the School. The first couple of weeks helped me improve upon my communication skills as I attended multiple events that the School was a part of.
Within this period a became acquainted with my mentor and the other Marketing Assistant, Emilia Suchora. I completed training in website and social media management. This training gave me a solid grounding in creating and uploading blogs, articles and social media content.
I was also responsible for completing a content strategy for Twitter and LinkedIn. This included 3-4 tweets and LinkedIn posts a week to promote the School’s research. Creating this content enhanced my critical thinking and evaluation skills as I was tasked with presenting complex research in a jargon-free way that the average person could understand.
Emilia and I researched and selected awareness days each month which aligned well with the Schools research and business engagement activities. I was able to develop my graphic design skills using Canva to create engaging graphics for social media posts, complying with brand guidelines.
Furthermore, we produced monthly social media reports to monitor the performance of each platform. This developed my analytical, evaluation and critical thinking skills. This taught me the importance of adaptability and it allowed me to devise a more effective strategy when certain things were not performing well. The August 2022 social media report showed me that August was the highest ever performing month on the Twitter account which was a satisfying achievement as it showed that my content strategy was working.
What skills did you improve upon whilst on placement?
Towards the end of my placement, I began to feel more comfortable at events. I assisted and helped organise The Future of the UK Economy event which was a collaboration between the School and The Resolution Foundation. Before the event, I had to ensure that the speakers had all the equipment they required such as a laptop, slide clicker, microphones and the various pop-up banners that they had sent to us in advance.
The Festival of Business at St George’s market was another event that I assisted at which was very rewarding as it allowed me to improve my ability to make new connections, and confidently introduce myself because I was tasked with going over to each stall to talk about what QMS had to offer. These two events improved my confidence and communication skills.
What was placement like overall and did it prepare you for a career after graduation?
Ultimately, my placement has been a great experience and I am very grateful to the School and my mentor for this amazing opportunity. I believe the routine of a nine to five placement has prepared me for my career after graduation.
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