Laura Kerrigan

Name: Laura Kerrigan
Club 21 Employer: Glasgow City Marketing Bureau
Degree Subject: Business and Management
Year of Graduation: 2008

One of the greatest concerns of any student (whether they are at college or at university) is not just whether they will get the best degree or course qualification but whether they will get a job at the end of their course with the qualification that they get.

I had not previously given serious thought towards gaining experience in the marketing industry. I imagine it is true of many graduates that the only work experience mentioned on their CV is the part-time job or jobs that have financed their university career.  These part-time jobs do offer some of the experience and skills that a graduate employer seeks, however they often do not highlight the candidate’s ability to put into practice the academic subjects that they have been studying.

More and more often, employers are emphasising the need for potential candidates to have had experience relevant to the job being applied for.  Unfortunately, the major problem for most is that experience in itself requires experience, and in many cases students are forced to resort to any experience to try to get their foot in the door and to make themselves a more appealing employment prospect.

I filled out an application for a Club 21 placement with the Glasgow City Marketing Bureau which caught my eye on the Club 21 website.  The website details placements available from a fantastic list of companies who are involved in the programme.  Straight away I was gaining experience; in the correct way to complete an application form (a good guide can be found on the Club 21 website), and in compiling a good CV.  The next learning curve was attending a proper interview in front of an actual interview panel and finally discovering I had been accepted for the placement and preparing myself for working a ‘9-5’ day. 

Immediately upon starting my placement I contributed to the preparation of a major upcoming city event (the River Festival) and one of my major projects involved the content management of the River Festival website.  This included communicating with clients to get copy and imagery regarding certain activities scheduled during the festival and also creating copy myself and sourcing the best imagery from the previous year.  Further to this, I had to compile a daily report to be sent round to the marketing team which analysed the increase in visits and unique visits to the River Festival website by comparing the rise in visits with ongoing marketing activity.  Another major project I had was the management of the events schedule on the seeglasgow.com website. These projects enabled me to achieve a useful comprehensive understanding of creating and evaluating websites using packages such as Google Analytics and Macromedia Contribute. 

Not only did I develop my employability and skills, I was applying my academic knowledge to real business situations, learning to take the initiative more often and improving my interpersonal and communication skills. I also feel an important aspect of my placement was learning the professionalism required in business, including good client liaison.

At the start of any Club 21 placement we fill out a placement diary and this focuses on skills we feel we have pre-placement, on the development of them throughout and then finishes by asking us to note how we feel we have improved them and also any new skills we have acquired throughout our placements.  This provides an abundance of practical examples for answering competency based questions in an interview situation.  This is something I discovered when applying for an account executive position in a marketing agency called Blue-Chip.

After successfully achieving an interview I was able to discuss my 3-month placement at GCMB with my new prospective employer.  The interview would have been less successful had I not gained any prior experience in the marketing industry.  Fortunately I was successful in my application to Blue-Chip and I truly accredit this success to my Club 21 placement.