Degree show completed….

Today was the last day of the degree show… I am very proud of everyone that helped put together the degree show as it was a true success and even our lecturer said it was the best display of work from our media production course that he’s ever seen before! The degree show featured photography work, films, radio and installation projects all put together by students in our course the work was really impressive and was a chance for us students to show off our work to the publid and future employers. I felt a sense of achievement seeing the foyer of our uni building all decorated with brightly coloured balloons and decorations and myself and nine other students took it upon ourselves to co ordinate the degree show as the rest of the course (70 people) didn’t bother. I can now add ‘degree show co- ordinator’ to my CV as it is another of my new skills to mention to future employers.

Below is the video put together by students showing highlights of our degree show ‘media festival 2010′ it also includes some interviews with media students describing their work for the show. I thought I may as well include this video into my blog as it gives you more of an idea about what the whole degree show was about, as I am not doing it enough justice typing about it on my blog. I am in this video, I am the first person that starts talking in it describing the different forms of media included in the degree show.

S.W.O.T analysis…reflection..

Earlier this year for my PDP module I did a SWOT analysis outlining my Strengths, Weaknesses, Oppurtunities and Threats. I thought this would be a good thing to keep for me to look back on and reflect on and see if I have progressed any further with professional development;

Strengths
My strengths for continuing my professional development are that I have had experience in the area of media I wish to develop a career in. For example I think my work experience placement at Mercia has enabled me to learn some of the skills needed for a career in radio, I have been able to get a real feel for the role of a radio producer and I think this may help me a lot. I am also a very confident and bubbly person which I think fits the criteria for a career in the media industry as well.

Reflection- This is still applicable but however now I am starting to think about maybe taking a different career path as I have started applying for jobs in the marketing and PR side of things. All in all though all the skills I have gained through both my work experience oppurtunities at BBC Coventry and Warwickshire and Mercia FM are included in my CV and shows I have developed experience in different areas of the media.

Weaknesses
I would say a weakness of mine would be the fact that I haven’t had enough work experience in different areas of the media for example, television. I feel that I could have maybe tried harder when it came to looking for different work experience placements, although I found a placement within a radio station I think it would have been more beneficial to me if I’d had found maybe two or three other work placements just for a few days a week or something, helping out television production or maybe a film production company. I feel that if I had done this it would have looked better on my C.V to show that I am versatile and have tried my hand at different things and been successful.

Reflection- Looking back at this weakness statement I still agree with what I have mentioned here however I can still apply for work experience placements to gain more skills and add to my CV. As a recent graduate I have started applying for jobs and also work experience oppurtunities so it is still a goal I have set myself.

Oppurtunities
A great opportunity that I have had whilst I have been at university is the chance to work with the BBC. Myself and a few others off my course were handpicked to help BBC Coventry and Warwickshire with their production of ‘Coventry Market the Musical’. The short musical was being made to celebrate Coventry Markets 50th Birthday and everyone featured in the film was from Coventry and basically was a celebration of the market I was honoured to be a part of it. My jobs included- ‘cable bashing’, helping to film certain parts of the film and just general runner duties.

Reflection- This was a great oppurtunity I had here in working with the BBC and it is something that looks impressive on my CV. Another great oppurtunity I had was being on the local news on a feature about a 6 year old agony aunt at mercia FM a local radio station I worked at for my professional placement.

Threats
One of my biggest threats I guess will be when it comes to getting a job after graduating and having to compete with so many other individuals for the one job that is available. The thought that I won’t have enough experience is a bit scary so I am working really hard at the moment to find as many work experience placements as I can while I’m still at university.

Reflection- This is still a major threat for me, as I am at the stage now where I am applying for jobs within the media. I have altered my CV in order to sell myself as best as I could so that future employers would consider me for the best candidate for the job.

New Skills…

After three years at university I have developed many new skills that will help me in my future career the new skills I possess are;
- film and audio editing
- recording and interviewing skills (vox pops)
- radio presenter (improvisation and communicative skills)
- radio producer (organisational,research skills, editing inserts)
- better photographic ability (working with up to date camera such as nikon D700)
- television production (working best in the roles of directors P.A or floor manager)
- publicity and marketing experience (promoting degree show)
- events organiser/co ordinator- ( helping co ordinate degree show design/decoration, advertising, promotion

Job hunting…

Whilst I have been signed up to a few job websites I came across a job vacancy for a new marketing firm called puresolutions direct. The advertisement said they were seeking ambitious candidates that were after a new challenge in life, and have job oppurtunities in marketing and events co ordination. This seemed a great oppurtunity for me and with nothing to lose I took it upon myself to apply for the position.
I attached my CV along with the following personal statement;

I am currently awaiting my final results from studying media production at Coventry university. By the summer I will have achieved a B.A Honors degree. I have a great passion in the media and have been able to develop new skills that will help me with a career in the media. I am quite interested in a job in marketing or PR as I think this suits my personality perfectly I am a very bubbly outgoing person who loves meeting new people, working well in a team or on my own. I have some experience in P.R as I am currently a ‘mercia thunder’ my duties include promoting the radio station in events around Coventry and Warwickshire. Basically being the face of the radio station. I have also had experience of being an events co-ordinator helping put together a degree show advertising and promoting our final projects to the public and potiential employers. I feel this job would give me the oppurtunity to excel in the marketing and PR side of things, eager to learn I grasp every oppurtunity I get with both hands and make it my goal to be successful at every thing I do.
I look forward to hearing from you soon
Hayley Land
The next day I recieved the following email;

Dear Applicant,

Thank you for your recent application.

This email is to inform you that you have been selected for an interview with our company.

Someone from our HR department will be in contact shortly, however if you wish, please do not hesitate to contact us directly using the contact information provided.

Well Done and we will speak to you soon!

Kind regards,

Mike Poole

Tel no: 02476 220500

http://www.puresolutions-direct.co.uk/

This is really good news and I am planning on contacting them tomorrow to arrange an interview, even if I don’t end up getting the job this will be a good oppurtunity for me to practice my interview skills.

PDP plan… reflection..

Last year we did a module similar to this called PDP in this module I made a -personal development plan which features future career goals and a plan of action of what to do next. I thought this would be good to look back on and reflect for this module;

Personal Development Plan

What is your ideal job for this module?
My ideal job would be a job within television or radio. In television I would like to help out with the producing side of things or filming. On the other hand, radio is what I want to do most my dream would be presenting my own radio show, I wouldn’t mind producing a radio show either.

What do you need to know about this job?
I need to know whether I fit the criteria-enough experience and qualifications needed for the job. If not, I am willing to gain enough experience needed of me to compete with others for the job. At the moment I am working at Mercia FM on an ongoing work experience placement in order to gain the experience I need which will hopefully increase my employability when it comes to finding a job after graduating.

What skills do you already have for the job?
I am a confident and bubbly person which is needed for most jobs within the media industry. I have developed radio presenting and producing skills through a university module which involved putting together a radio show in groups of three. My Work experience at Mercia FM has also enabled me to develop my technical skills in the radio studio as well as my editing skills on the program ‘audacity’. Through working at Mercia I have also been able to complete certain tasks within a time limit in order to be organised and also develop an understanding of the ins and outs of radio.

What skills do you need to get?
As I am currently working firsthand with the presenter and producer of the breakfast show at Mercia FM I could ask them for a few skills instruction session on the decks in the studio. Although I am already starting to develop and understanding of the skills that are needed of me by just being an onlooker in the studio every Friday. As this is an ongoing professional work experience placement at Mercia hopefully I will develop my skills and knowledge of the world of radio throughout my placement.

Looking back at this PDP plan it was around the time when I was doing my work experience placement at Mercia FM. Since then I have achieved a paid position at mercia as a thunder through my placement and have successfully developed my skills in the studio and communicative skills whilst interviewing the public. My career goals however have now changed I no longer want to be a radio presenter and want to go into something such as events organisation or television production. I am now in the process of looking for jobs in these areas and have signed up to several sites including- reed.co.uk, mycoventryjobs.co.uk and mediaweekjobs.co.uk all of which email me when there is a job that will take my interest on their website. I have also uploaded my CV to each of these websites so employers can look at it.

My showreel…

For my showreel I have struggled putting together all of my artefacts that I have created over the last three years of university to display into a showreel. I haven’t managed to get a copy of some of my pieces of work in which I am proud of due to not recieving a reply off the lecturer who has them so I have decided to write about them instead.

In my first year at university our end of year project was to make a television show particularly a ‘magazine show’ which featured coventry in it. Our group decided to make a television show based on the format of ‘this morning’ and we called it ‘Coventry Today- A summer special’. Basically our show featured a male and female presenter (like this morning) and featured inserts that included- places in coventry to go for good days out in summer, summer fashion, summer foods, drinks etc and also a competition. My job role in the production of our magazine show was the ‘directors P.A’ for this job I had to be focused, organised and have good timekeeping skills aswell as communication skills. It was my job to communicate to the studio from the gallery via the floor manager. It was after being in this job role that I started to consider that maybe a career in television production behind the scenes would be something I could pursue in the future. For this television production module we recieved a grade first for our magazine show as it really was a good show, the grade reflects all the hard work every single person from the group put into it. The lecturers were also very impressed with our magazine show, so much so that it is shown at open days to students visiting the university that are interested in the media production course.

In my second year at university I did quite a few projects in which I am proud of and would also like them to display here but yet again I have still to get hold of all the footage. My first project of the year was a short film in which we had to put together using still images and audio. My group of four decided to do our film on one of the group members mothers and how tough her life is being a single mother. It was quite a moving piece in which the images were a tool to provoke emotion and matched the audio, for example we had pictures of Zoe (member of our group) when she was little with her mother when the audio mentioned the past etc. For this project we achieved a 2.1 in which we were all very pleased with.

Another project we put together in this year in the same group of four was another short film in which we had the task of trying to tackle scriptwriting. We wanted the narrative of the story for our short film to be about a girl who met a boy at a bus stop and they got talking and the girl could read his minds and others. The story continues with the boy and girl walking round town and the boy asking the girl what people around them were thinking. We wangted this short film to be humorous so we spent a lot of time and effort on the script. Unfortunately for us we came across a few major gliches with the production of the short film due to actors letting us down at the last min, and the film set surroundings being practical to film (traffic. general noise in background when filming). The lecturers were aware of all our problems and so took this into conmsideration when marking the piece and I think we ended up getting a 2.1 for this piece which was great!. After all the difficulties we encountered when putting together this short film I learnt a lot about myself, one that I work well in a team, I am quite creative with ideas that I have for narratives. Finally I have learnt I can cope well under pressure, kepping focused on the job in hand to complete an assignment or task on time.

My final project for my second year was a broadcast module in which myself and the other two members of my group decided to put together a radio show. The radio show that we made was probably one of my biggest achievements as when we were all deciding roles I opted for presenter as I thought my personality was better suited at this role and I don’t see myself as being very technical. However I was picked to be the producer in my group and at first I was a bit shaky and nervous in this role with a bit of practice in the role I ended up being fine. The concept of my groups radio show was a fictional show called ‘cloud 9 FM’ -brought to you from just beyond cloud 8. We decided to look at greeks gods and goddesses with funny names to incorporate into the show as well as mystical and cosmological characters such as ‘fate and destiny’.The show is presented by Claire Voyant, and features items such as ‘win a date with ‘destiny’ and her twin sister ‘Fate’, listen to ‘Destiny’s decisions’ (horoscopes for listeners), and features ‘the planets’ (girlband) new song ‘orbiting you’. The lecturer Shelly loved the concept of our show and because we had advertisements included in it as well as different voice actors reading the news and sport it featured a lot of variety. We achieved a grade first for this radio broadcast module in which I was very happy about and the broadcast module was one of my favourite modules that we had on our university course. I am still awaiting a copy of my radio show as I think it will be good to show future employers, but I do have the website we made which features some of the inserts we made for the show and other things such as photo galleries on.

http://cloud9fm.webs.com/listenagain.htm

During this module I started my work experience placement at Mercia FM a local radio station in which I had the oppurtunity to work firsthand with the presenter and producer of the breakfast show. I was able to polish my editing skills in the studio as well as going out and interviewing the public for inserts in the show. I was lucky enough to gain some great oppurtunities through working at mercia with being featured on the news accompanying an insert they doing about mercia six year old agony aunt Elaina. The news footage is featured below I am the first person to come on to put my dilemma forward to Elaina.

Also through working at mercia I was able to get a paid position working as a mercia thunder, basically promoting the radio station at events at coventry and warwickshire.

In my third and final year at university in my group of four we have been working on our final project. We decided to choose the theme of dance and movement photography but add some depth into the theme by looking at ‘How we take movement forgranted’. For this, we interviewed a fellow student of ours called Terry O Brien who has arthogryposis which means he’s wheelchair bound and he describes how little things that we do every day like walking and dancing he can’t do and describes how we just dismiss this and take it forgranted. We wanted to create stop motion footage of a dancer dancing around whilst we played Terry’s interview over the top to add meaning to the piece. We also took a few pictures of myself and Charlotte (member of the groups) sisters as they are dancers to put on the walls to display within our degree show. Our research for this theme of work is found on this blog under 311mc and also some of our photographs are on here too.

Contacts…

Throughout both my work experience placements with the BBC and Mercia FM I have been able to put together a list of contacts which may come in handy when it comes to applying for a job. Luckily for me, I know these people well enough for them to give me a reference or for them to contact me if any job oppurtunities come up in their field of work.
My contacts I have met through my placements are;

Siobhan Harrison- BBC Coventry and Warwickshire
Andy Goulding- Mercia FM (breakfast show presenter)
Thomas Reeves- Mercia FM (breakfast show producer)
Jon Stratton -Mercia FM (events and promotions manager)
Claire Godfrey - Mercia FM (fellow mercia thunder)
Richard Neale- Mercia FM (afternoon presenter)

The Degree show…

For our final project which will be displayed in our degree show, myself and three others in my group decided to do a photography piece to display. We decided on photography as we had explored television production, film making, and radio production in other modules. Three of us in the group- myself, Charlotte and Stacey had studied photography at GCSE and A level and so we decided to use our photography skills to our advantage and create a specatacular photography piece to display. The research and photographs that make up this final project are found in previous blog entries under 311MC. For the planning, co ordination and organisation part of the degree show our course was split into different groups each focusing on different aspects on the show. Although I put my name down to join the events management team as it is something I am looking into for a future career I was put into the publicity and marketing group. I didnt mind being in the publicity group as it was my second choice that I put down anyway. The duties of my publicity group was mainly to set up a website which advertises the whole degree show to the public and so that people could have a taster of what the degree show will be like. The idea of the degree show is to show off our work to potiential employers and the public and promote the university and our course as a whole. Although I don’t necessarily want to pursue a career in photography as I am more interested in working in other areas of the media it would be good to see what advice viewers of the degree show could give us about out job oppurtunities. We could maybe have the oppurtunity to be a photographers rep? or someone may even want to buy our prints? who knows!. During the course of the degree show preparations I have also had the oppurtunity to help out my friends in the events organisation team with putting together the degree show ordering decorations, putting together posters and directions for the public for when they come. As I am looking into events organisation as a career path for when I graduate I have been able to get some experience into this field of work as a ‘degree show co-ordinator’.

job hunting…

Over the past few months I have been looking on various websites for different job oppurtunities within the media for when I graduate. Although when I intially started looking most of the jobs were based in London I was a little unsure whether I wanted to commute all the way to London everyday or even move there. So I started to look for jobs a little closer to home, in birmingham and coventry.

While i was browsing on guardianjobs.com I came across these few jobs that took my interest;

PR Account Manager

Employer: AF SELECTION
Posted: 26 May
2010Reference:
23910Contact: Mrs Emma West MidlandsIndustry:Marketing & PR – B2B Marketing & PR – Consumer Media – Advertising Marketing & PR – PR Contract:
PermanentHours:
Full TimeSalary: £22,000- £26,000 + car allowance

This is a very broad role with one of the most respected consultancies in the region. Whilst you will work on multiple accounts, it is essential that you are happy to work on specific client who has a multifaceted approach and you will work on consumer, b2b and corporate work. You will be responsible for managing the day to day running of accounts as well as overseeing junior team members. Additionally you should be able to develop annual programmes and proposals with some guidance. Previous agency experience is essential as you will be expected to be capable of offering an advisory service to clients. Naturally you will also have very strong writing skills with the ability to tailor your style for different channels. Our client will consider applicants who are already at AM level, or SAE’s ready for the next step. Fantastic opportunity to work with some real professionals. Apply immediately with a CV for further information.

Media telesales consultant

Salary:
£26070 – £34920 pa + Unca
Location:
Birmingham
Job Type:
Permanent
Date Posted:
21-May-2010 16:28
Yell’s Media Telesales Consultants are leading industry experts that provide solutions not just products to help our customers grow their business’s year on year. By using Yell’s market leading portfolio of online, print, voice and mobile offerings our telesales consultants use a combination of knowledge, expertise and consultative influencing to provide cutting edge lead generation solutions to the SME market…

Employer: DOUBLETAKE STUDIOS

Posted: 09 May 2010
Location:London/Birmingham/Manchester/SouthamptonIndustr:
Customer service Media -
Creative Sales – Media Contract: PermanentHours: Full TimeSalary: Daily Rate £60/£70

http://www.doubletake-london.co.uk

The UK’s leading makeover and photographic studio.

We are now recruiting for Sales Staff in London/Birmingham/Manchester/Southampton

Suitable candidates need to be confident, with an outgoing personality, fun, presentable and motivated. You will be based at our studios in the city centre. Dealing with customers face to face, you will need to deliver the highest customer service while maximising sales.

A Very Good Daily Rate £60/£70

£50,000 OTE.

You will be required to work some weekends.

If you can rise to the challenge, and are looking for a sales role with a difference then: Call: 0207 843 6284 or EMAIL your CV to: london.sales@doubletake-uk.com
clearly state the LOCATION you are applying for.

The three job roles above have particularly took my interest as not only do I think I fit the description of the type of people they need for these job roles i have the skills needed for the job too. Even though I particularly want to go into radio or television after looking around on different websites at the different jobs available within the media i have decided I should expand my horizons a bit more and just apply for anything that takes my fancy. In particular the three above offer great salaries and to be honest who wouldn’t want to be earning that sort of money!!
Other job websites I have looked on that advertise other media jobs are;
www.mediauk.com
www.mandy.com
www.mediaweekjobs.com

The personal skills I possess which I think would be ideal for all of the jobs i have posted above are;

-Confident
-Friendly
-good communication skills
-hardworking
-ambitious
-reliable
-trustworthy
-punctual
-excellent telephone manner
-well presented
-keen to learn

Volunteering in the community…

 
In my second year at university I did an advantage course called ‘volunteering in the community’, I chose this course as I thought it would be good to include on my CV.

It is seen as quite good if someone includes on their CV that they have helped  the community in some way or other as it says a lot about that person.
In my case myself and a few others on the course painted a playground for a local school we were even featured in the local newsapaper as well as ‘the source’ newspaper which is coventry university’s newpaper.

The article is shown above, I am in the picture on the far right.