Why Work Experience is Important

A lot of people shy away from the idea of work experience, thinking it's only necessary to do for those two weeks in high school and not really realizing how beneficial it can be.  Work experience is, essentially, working for free, in some cases you have to cover your own travel costs and, if you're already working, take time off from your main job. 

Despite this, work experience can be extremely helpful, especially if you're trying to get into a business like media or journalism. I've found that most of the journalism related opportunities I've gained since graduating have mostly been down to my own experience rather then my degree. I know a lot of you blog readers hope for a career in media, so I'm hoping that this post applies to a lot of you. With media/journalism, it's never strictly about having a degree and sometimes it's never strictly about having experience either. Although you can break into the industry on just one of the two, both are equally just as important to the other which means that getting some work experience under your belt is so helpful to get your foot in the door in a career like this.

However, as stated before, obviously the 'working for free' part doesn't really appeal to many people. Here's some tips to why you should consider doing some work experience despite this factor anyway and how it will help you.

• Any form of work experience will look great on your C.V, whether you spent the week getting features published or something as little as making tea for everyone. No matter what, the fact that you were willing to take time out of working and put some effort into furthering your experience will look really good on your C.V and any future employer will see that. Most especially, if you manage to bag work experience at a well known or really good company, this will also look great.
• You'll make some great contacts too, and if you make a good impression people will remember you. Even if it doesn't lead onto a job, if you've made a good impression with the people you worked with then they will remember you and probably consider you for any other upcoming opportunities too. 
• You'll also get the chance to work and speak to these people and learn more about their roles in the company and the production of the company's product (such as how a magazine is put together if you do experience with a magazine's company etc) and no matter what, you'll end up learning loads. There's no doubt that you'll finish your work experience having learned more about the career than you did in the first place.
• You'll have a chance to impress your boss or anyone else that works there the way other people won't. If you apply for any jobs at a later date, they'll already know the standard of your work and how well you fit in with their team so already you've got that extra positive that other people applying for the job won't have.
• Finally, you'll have fun - there's nothing better sitting in the offices of your dream job, trying out different roles in the company and meeting other people that work there.

There are many other benefits of work experience but that's generally the gist of it - the idea that I'm trying to put across is that it'll benefit YOU and not just the employer. So many people think work experience is just an excuse for a company to use someone for pointless errands - and sometimes you might find you do end up having work experience where you do little else - but even in cases like these, it'll still benefit you a lot. You'll also probably find that a lot of companies are so lovely to work with and will probably offer some money towards any travel costs and be quite flexible if they know you need to commute far.

So if you weren't quite sure whether to go ahead with work experience, hopefully this post has changed your mind a bit! Over the next few weeks I'll be posting about this a few more times with advice on how to find yourself work experience and how to act on work experience as well. There are so many people struggling to get their foot in the door right now and work experience is one of the few but extremely helpful methods for helping towards getting that dream job.

The Only Way Is Blogging

On Saturday I attended my first ever The Only Way Is Blogging event, which is basically an event put together for all bloggers to meet, attend workshops on helpful subjects like how to improve your blog or how to make a career out of blogging and to just generally meet like minded people. It’s been going on for a couple of years now with hundreds of bloggers repeatedly attending.

I’d been planning to meet Bex and Lisa for a few months now, so when I found the details of the next TOWIB event, I decided to go and so did they. Tickets were only £5 and the event was being held in central London, so not only was it cheap and affordable, it was also easily accessible. The three of us arranged to go together and all our journeys were pretty much the same, we got the train into London and Lisa got on at the stop before me, whereas Bex got on a couple of stops after me.

Bex also got talking to Kirstie who was coming all the way from Leeds! As she was travelling alone, we invited her to come along with us and met her once we arrived in London. We arrived at the venue pretty early so decided to get a bit of breakfast in Pret A Manger. Within half an hour we were all having a laugh and it felt like we’d known each other for years.

The event was being held at Tiger Tiger, which was a weird place to hold a blogging event, but it was big and spacious and there were a lot of us! It was really nice and glam inside too. Once we got in we had a chat with some other bloggers and signed in, before grabbing a table.

Up first was a talk from Dr Linda Papadopoulos all about body confidence and the way women are perceived as so flawless in the media. I loved her talk, it was really inspiring and I thought it was quite refreshing to hear someone talk to passionately about those particular issues and trying to make a difference to change then.

She also told us a great story about a workshop she held once. On the first day, she blindfolded a group of people and told them herself and some other make up artists would be attaching realistic facial disfigurements to their faces, and then asked them to head outside and hand out leaflets, so she could see if it made any difference to the public. The group of people returned and noted that they’d found the experience horrible – the public had ignored them, not looked them into their eyes, walked in the opposite direction etc. The next day Dr Linda asked them to do the same thing, but this time she let them go out as they were – aka not attaching anything to their faces. Upon returning, the group’s attitude had completely changed. They’d claimed the public had been friendly and inviting, chatting to them and generally being the complete opposite than how they were the previous day.

It was then that Dr Linda revealed that on the first day, she hadn’t actually attached anything to their faces. The group had gone outside, looking as they always did and as they looked on the second day – only with the BELIEF that they had facial disfigurements. The group had let this thought affect the way they acted towards others – they’d acted shy and quiet and let what was on their face define them.

The story behind that experiment was generally the same message behind Dr Linda’s talk – by acting unconfident you are letting your issues define you, when in actual fact you don’t need to act like that. She explains that confidence comes from within and that we should accept ourselves as we are and learn to love what we are, instead of striving to become something we’re not. It was really interesting and inspiring, and the story she told us was fascinating.

After Dr Linda’s talk we had a couple of workshops – the first with Scott Cornwall which was about colouring your hair, and the second with amazing photographer Jai'me who gave us some tips about how to take good photos for your blog and how to take photographs a bit more professionally.

We then had a nice lunch with a few cheeky cocktails, before returning for another talk and then a couple of workshops. The talk was a Q&A session with some top bloggers and ladies that had gone on to create careers out of their blogs – again, this was quite inspiring and taught us how to start looking at our blogs more professionally rather then just as a hobby. Then we had a workshop with a lovely lady from KMI Brands who explained a bit more about advertising and the way it works. We got chatting and ended up actually staying there for the full hour, talking about the relationship between bloggers and companies and all sorts of blogging/media related things.

Image taken from Bex's blog 

Finally, to end the day we had a more general Q&A session with some other ladies that had arranged the event, and generally this was just a humorous chat about blogging and social media.

I found the day extremely helpful – in all honestly I took different snippets and tips from the day and the workshops altogether, but I found the day to be more helpful to me in that I met other bloggers and managed to network a bit too. I found it more beneficial when I sat down in a small group and had an informal chat with one of the ladies, rather then the big Q&A sessions (although these were inspiring and helpful too). Altogether I thought it was just nice to meet like minded people because sometimes I do definitely feel like blogging is like a big online community – people can be so friendly and over time you do tend to think of some other regular bloggers as friends.

Afterwards we realized we were only around the corner from M&M world so had a little mooch in there – it was my idea even though I hate M&Ms. This was a bit of a laugh too, especially with the over enthusiastic worker who insisted on getting loads of photos with us!

I was exhausted by the time I got home! I’d got a few nice freebies, bought some gorgeous jewelry and ended up with LOADS of business cards. By the end of the day I felt so much more confident about blogging as a whole – it was kind of like by attending the event I’d established that I’ve been doing everything right and to just keep doing it really. It was very helpful and I’ll definitely be attending the next event. I’ve been thinking about my blog as more than just a blog for a while now and I’m definitely leaning more in the direction of blogging more professionally than as a hobby. Attending TOWIB gave me tips to do this and helped me confirm that I was on the right track, as well as introducing me to some lovely ladies and getting my blog a bit more known.

Guide to getting a job in the media ; Internships

Being a freelance journalist myself, I know first hand how hard it is to get your foot in the door in this area of business. Media, journalism and PR are all very hard jobs to get into and unfortunately good grades and a talent for writing doesn't just do it these days. Experience is so unbelievably important ; but again, gaining experience is tough in its own. First of all, if you are unemployed, it's hard to keep working for free as internships don't always lead onto a full time position. Not all employers offer to pay for travel costs either. It can also be hard actually finding an internship to suit you ; these days internships are advertised in much different ways to how they used to be and often when you finally find out about them, the role might already be filled.

However, being an avid reader of her blog and in complete awe of all her experience, I decided to ask Jennifer Rosellen a bit more about her experience and how she's managed to bag so many internships in the past. I know a lot of my readers are also interested in careers to do with fashion or beauty journalism, writing and PR too so I thought this might be useful! I sent her and email and she was more than happy to answer my questions and offer a bit of advice on how to get your foot in the door when it comes to internships.

You clearly have a lot of experience under your belt! Can you start by telling me how this has come about - from the very beginning? What inspired you to begin your blog?
I was bored in the summer holidays in my second year of University and was googling beauty products and stumbled across Lollipop26 on Youtube and watched her videos for about three hours! Then I found her blog and read that for hours. I decided then to start my own and that night I posted my first blog post which was a little 'introduction' to myself - very cringe worthy now but I had no idea what I was doing!My first opportunity for work experience came from Max Clifford who is a family friend and I spent 2 weeks at MCA. After that I realised I wanted to work in PR so I applied for everything and anything and was lucky enough to secure my Lancôme Internship. I went traveling and on my return secured an internship Babelfish PR as I had met the girls through my blog and kept in contact. After finishing at Babelfish I interned at More Magazine, which came about through being a member of the 'More hot 100!'.

How long have you been a PR Assistant Account Executive (what a mouthful!) and what does the role entail?
I have been a PR assistant account exec for 3 months. It entails lots of admin such as keeping track of costs, logging all of the coverage of the product you are PRing, calling journalists to see what they are working on, arranging and undertaking press drops whereby you visit journalists to deliver products, sourcing items for press days and journalist gifts (e.g. cupcakes, prizes, alcohol, venues, goody bags), targeting influencers (celebrities, bloggers etc), writing press releases and lots and lots of replying to calls and emails!

Have you always wanted to be a PR Assistant Account Executive?
I've always wanted to be in PR yes. I would eventually like to move into beauty writing and social media full time as well as PR.

How did you manage to get your blog represented by Handpicked Media and how does this benefit you? Does it involve any extra work on your part?
You have to have a certain number of unique users per month before you can become a part of the handpicked media collective - it does not involve any more work :)

For readers who don't know much about Handpicked Media can you just sum up what involvement they have with bloggers and how any bloggers can try and get represented by them too?
Handpicked Media represents some of the most popular blogs - I have only been represented by them for a week or so so I don't have much insight yet!

What was your first internship and how did you find the opportunity?
At MCA and because Max was a family friend. The others I have found through twitter (Lancôme), networking and blogging (Babelfish) and blogging (More!)

Your blog lists the different internships you've had over the past few years - do you have any other experience that isn't listed?
Nope! Just University and things I did there such as events organising (I was one of a team of four who organised the safer sex ball event at Exeter University)

Did you go to university and if so did you study a degree related to your current job role?
Exeter University - Psychology.

What do you think is more important - a degree or experience?
Difficult one. They both have their benefits. I think they are equally important and I would say that just because you have a degree in 'X' doesn't mean you cannot pursue a career in 'Y' . I think having a degree will always be beneficial as employers react favorably to it, but you can always complete work experience and internships in the job sector you wish to pursue regardless of whether you have a related degree or a degree at all!

Can you tell me a little bit about the internships you've had so far. For example, what was the best/worst one? Did any of them lead onto any other opportunities?
They have all been helpful but I enjoyed being the only person in the Lancôme office for 2 days as that was a lot of responsibility and Babelfish also gave me a lot of responsibility, which was great. There is also a lot of boring stuff like sorting out the post and getting peoples tea and coffee - especially in magazines. That's not quite as fun...!

You have a section on your blog where you list available internships - how do you find out about them all?
I follow everyone on twitter! Like everyone from every magazine possible! Plus gorkana jobs, diary directory and fashion monitor. If anyone ever RT's or tweets an internship I make sure to favourite it.

How do you feel different internships have benefited you?
I've gained an insight into a world I'd never otherwise see, especially with regards to the workings of a busy magazine desk. I feel that internships show you are serious about a career and that you are willing to make an effort so it looks good to an employer. It's always great to network and meet new people and see inside different organizations.

How do you find time for all the different internships whilst you are also working?
I was at University and on my gap year luckily enough but it is very difficult. I'd suggest taking a job in retail (I worked at Jack Wills for example in my gap year), which allows for flexible shifts.

Finally, do you have any advice for anybody struggling to get their foot in the door or struggling to find their first internship?
Yes - read this!

Massive thanks to Jennifer for taking the time to answer these questions! I hope this benefits anyone who  may be struggling with these types of internship problems - I know it has helped me. You can visit Jennifer's blog here and you can also find an excellent feature on her blog where she regularly lists current internship opportunities - it's very helpful!

8 Reasons Why You Should Be On LinkedIn!

If you're not on LinkedIn then you need to get yourself over there now and sign up for an account immediately and if you don't know what it is - where have you been?!

LinkedIn is basically like a social networking website - but for professionals. LinkedIn is no Facebook - boozy pictures and booty-call arranging have no place on this website! LinkedIn is used to connect to, or link up with, old colleagues and friends who are listed as your 'connections'. If you aren't already signed up to this website, here's why you should be -

• LinkedIn is like a more detailed résumé or CV. You can use your profile to display all of your experience, your past jobs and employment details, any achievements or awards you might have and all your skills. You can also talk about your interests and what you are like from a professional point of view. 
• You can put as much stuff - and you can list as much experience - as you like on LinkedIn. This is perfect when applying for a job and it's always useful to direct a company to your LinkedIn profile. First of all it shows that you on the ball and eager to climb the ladder and second of all the detailed experience means the company can see ALL of your experience and not just the roles you managed to fit on a typical 2 page CV. I often find it hard to decide what experience to showcase on my CV (2 pages is usually the ideal length of a résumé) and find I have to leave out some experience because of this - even when some of this additional experience could help secure me the job. Thanks to LinkedIn, I can display all of it and when I apply for a job I can submit my CV AND direct a company to my profile.
• Many companies not only use LinkedIn to advertise jobs (especially exclusive high-end jobs) but they also browse profiles and can often find suitable candidates easily by using the website as it's so easy to find someone with the relevant skills and experience. Finally, you can apply to these jobs via LinkedIn easily by writing a cover letter and attaching your CV. Anything else they need to know will be on your profile for them to see.
• LinkedIn also offers groups like Facebook, but again, it is more professional. You can join different groups and networks for all different industries such as groups for bloggers or for internships. For some of these groups, your profile needs to be checked before you are accepted. This means that it's only professionals or people clearly interested in the subject at hand in the group - people that can benefit you.
• It is the perfect website for finding and reuniting with connections. What makes LinkedIn unique is that generally you have to know someone to connect to them, which stops unwanted random adds and means those connected to you are more beneficial. If you find you have people on your Facebook that you know run a business or are useful as a connection then it's ideal to invite them to LinkedIn and keep a record of all your contacts in one place. Contacts are important in all industries and especially in Journalism - it's not about what you know but who you know.
• If you feel you'd like to connect to someone who you don't know but you think you could be beneficial to one another then you can request an 'introduction' if you have a connection (friend) in common. This is very useful because if a friend is willing to do that then it immediately gives off the impression that it would be useful to know one another. The introduction consists of simply a brief message outlining that this person should connect to you. Although it's good experience meeting new people at meet and greets, getting to know people and possibly swapping business cards, this is another less daunting (and more modern) way to do so. 
• The website also suggests groups, jobs and companies that you may be interested based on what is displayed on your profile - but neatly on the left side of the homepage. LinkedIn isn't a website that will spam you constantly and you can as always control what emails you do and don't receive.
• On the homepage you can also find a brief timeline about what your connections are up to - so easy to find out and congratulate a friend when they have a new job or when they add new connections that you might also benefit from!

If you're not on LinkedIn by now, there are 8 reasons to why you really ought to be!