Employability & Enterprise Week

Employability & Enterprise Week

Having been to all the talks/events I planned to go to, and writing about them all, I thought that I'd do a quick round up of the week as a whole and how I felt about it. As this is now my second year I have something to compare the week to because I attended talks at last years employability and enterprise week, and when looking at the quality of the weeks regarding the talks there is no comparison, its night and say, the talk this year were incredible and inspiring, I learnt so much throughout the week that will stay with me now for a very long time, last year I felt disappointed, this year I feel the events were  brilliant. 

I think what changed this year was that the talks were more aimed at Media students and the people who came in to delivery the talks were passionate and successful and a lot of t he good traits they had, like skill and determination rubbed off on us. I would like to personally thank everyone who was involved with setting up the talks of the week and the week in general, I don't know many of the names of the staff who set up the week so I won't name them by name I'll just say thank you to everyone involved. I also feel its important to say thank you to all the people who gave up their time to come and talk to us students, personally I'd like the thank; Jane Slimming (Zeal Media) Joanne Taylor (CAFOD) Nigel Gorski (Accountant) and finally Neil Shand (Candu Media), but again I'd like to give a thank you the everyone who came in and if there reading this they should know that we as students really do appreciated the advice and information were given and I can say personally that I always act upon it, so for everyone involved thank you.

I Want to Work in Film and TV

After a busy week of attended talk for Employability and Enterprise week I am now on my last talk, this time it is a talk named "I want to work in film and TV" and was done by Neil Shand of Candu Media. As I've mentioned before this was the talk I was most looking forward to at the start of the week because I do want to work in Film and TV so I was excited to attend this talk.

Writing this now after I've attended the four talks I planned to attend this week I can honestly say that this was the best, that's not to disrespect the other brilliant people who came in to talk to us, they were good as well but this one was more tailor made and personal to me so I think that's why I enjoyed it slightly more than the rest. One thing that I've noticed during the weeks events is how much I've actually learnt from each individual talk and again this was no different, at the risk of sounding like a broken record in my write ups of the talks I will go into what I actually learnt but first I'll give a little more detail on Neil Shand

Throughout the talk I found Neil to be really inspirational with everything he said and everything he has done in the media industry. Determination was a word that Neil continued to bring more and he went on to tell us that to get into the ITV building he got in touch with a friend who cleaned camera lenses and asked him if he could help him, his friend asked him why and pointed out that he would not get paid, which Neil replied "I just want to get into the building". I found that anecdote to be really inspiring, I try my hardest everyday to put effort into everything I do, and I try my hardest to get as much experience as I can outside of university, be that working for In-House productions or working as a photographer for www.accommodationforstudents.com, and hearing how this approach worked for Neil makes me feel justified in my approach to life as it were.

I felt as Neil was giving the talk that there were similarities between his approach to his work, and the media industry in general, and my approach, he went on to say that over the course of his career hes done every job available and tried every bit of equipment he could try, this is how I like to get experience, I will do any job within the media industry in the hope that one day someone may need an emergency film editor and I can just jump in.

Neil had a significantly impresses CV of TV programmes that hes been involved in, this ranges from Coronation Street, to Heartbeat to A Touch of Frost and of course many more. I would hope in 20 years time that I could boast the same kind of quality portfolio, I know that when I get my chance I will take it, much like Neil did and is still doing. 


We gained a lot of tips from this talk about how to actually get the proverbial foot in the door, one thing that Neil mentioned that has been mentioned numerous times this week is unpaid work experience, even if thats one week in a film production company the more you put into getting experience the more you will get out when it comes to finding a job. One thing though I he did mention that I didn't know was who to actually write to, he said that theres no point writing an email to someone who doesn't do "the hiring and firing" as Neil put it he advised us to research who is the production manager or line producer in an organisation and write to them instead. 

After listening to this talk I genuinely felt inspired to keep on plugging away at getting experience and carrying on taking any unpaid job that I can find because it will eventually help me. As I said before this was my favourite talk but I've got to be honest and say they were all brilliant and I'm already looking forward to next year Employability and Enterprise week.

Useful Links:
www.candumedia.com/

Interested in Starting a Business?

The first of the two talks that I attended today was the "Interested in Starting a Business? Is it Right for You?" talk delivery by Nigel Gorski of nigelgorskiconsulting.com. Nigel is a successful accountant and business consultant I was really looking forward to this talk prior to this even because starting a business is something that as always been in the back of my mind but I've never fully thought that I could do it, so the thought of attending a talk to determine if starting a business is right for me was brilliant. 

During the talk I realised that there was so much about starting a business that I didn't know about, when Nigel began to talk about the roles that he occupies day by day I began to notice my lack of business knowledge, Nigel talked about; Accounting, Payroll, VAT, Business Plans, Book Keeping and many other aspects of a business  Natural at this point I had about a million questions I wanted to ask but he noted he was on a time limit because he needed to be out of the room for one because there was another talk (coincidently the last talk I was attending of the week) so I kept the questions down to a minimum. 

Fortunately I was still able to ask quite few questions of which Nigel had answers for, this leads me into the thing that I enjoyed most about this talk and that was the business knowledge that Nigel had, he was able to answer any question from the audience with ease, and not only that he would convey quite technical business knowledge in layman's terms so that everyone could understand each point that he made. 

Throughout the talk Nigel was very honest with his assessment of students starting a business and noted that over 40% of new businesses fail within the first 12 months, but strangely this didn't put me off starting a business at all and I didn't see this as a particularly negative point, I appreciated what Nigel was saying, which was essentially don't start a business without the proper knowledge and planning. 

I can honestly say from the result of the talk that I feel enlightened by what I learnt  the amount of technical business terms used in the talk that I have looked up just while writing this is unbelievable and I now feel that if starting a business is the way I go then I can actually do it, and that is down to some of the things I heard in the talk from Nigel.

Useful Links:
www.nigelgorskiconsulting.com

Penultimate and Final Talks

Today I will be attending my penultimate and final talks for Employability and Enterprise week in rapid succession, I have the "interested in starting a business - is it right for you?" talk at 12-1 by Nigel Gorski and that is followed right away by my final talk of the week, "I want to work in Film and TV" delivered by Neil Shand, production manager at Candu Media. The first talk I think will be very intriguing because I have always thought about starting a business but I'm still unsure if it would suit me so I am hoping the first talk does what it says on the tin and I find out "if its right for me". My final talk of the week with Neil Shand is the one I was most looking forward to as I do want to work in film and TV so I am hoping I learn a lot about how to make that first step towards getting a career in the TV or Film industry.

Leeds Film Festival: Film To Change

Even though this isn't something in association with my University I still feel it warrants a place on this blog because it was event that I learnt a lot from.

The event itself was part of the Leeds film festival and demonstrated a series of 15 films/documentaries about mental health and learning disabilities and went under the banner "film to change". The event was held at the Leeds Town Hall.

The one thing that impressed me most was the variety in the tone of each short film, some were funny, some were educational and some were really sad, one moment I was laughing and the next moment I was trying not to cry in front of a large audience of film producers.

I mentioned before the word "educational" and for me that was one of the things I liked the most about the event, I learnt so much, such as the fact that 1 in 4 people will be affected by mental health issues in there lifetime, facts like this helped me understand how much of a relevant issue mental health is. I also learnt a lot about the people in the videos, they were inspirational, when you think of the challenges certain people have to go through in day to day life it really does have a profound effect on how you view life in general.

Out of all the short films I watched my favourite was a film called "Down the Rabbit Hole" directed by Vanessa Findlay. The film focused on a teenage girl who was suffering from depression, the way the piece was shot and some of the shocking images you saw of the girl, such as her lying in the middle of a room motionless or the sight of her many scars from attempted suicide, made me really think about how many people I have met who maybe hiding a secret like this. I think this film effected me most because I had a friend who had issues such as the above so I could relate to the struggles the girl was going through.

Going back to a more technical film producing point it was great to see films that were shot on a low budget but were still very high quality productions, it inspired me because I started thinking that I could make a short film to the same quality as what I was watching on the screen.

I feel the entire experience as a whole was one I'm glad I had, for the small price of £5 I saw 15 films or documentaries and whilst watching them felt a wide range of emotion as well as learning so much a long the way.

Useful Links:
www.leedsfilm.com/

Working for CAFOD

I attended my second talk of Employability and Enterprise week at Leeds Trinity University today, and this one was a little different because it focussed on working in the voluntary sector. The talk was given by Joanna Taylor from CAFOD which stands for Catholic Agency For Overseas Development, CAFOD are a Catholic aid agency for England and Wales, they
battle poverty in a variety of third world countries. 

This was a really interesting talk because I didnt know a lot about CAFOD or the voluntary sector in general so from the first minute of the talk I was learning new things. I liked the fact that the representatives from CAFOD gave out a really interesting hand-out with a list of facts about poverty and other bad things from around the world, the facts on the list really do help you understand the state of the world and how lucky you actually are. The list read:

1) The population of the world is 7 billion 
2) Over 1 billion people live on les than US$1 a day
3) It is estimated 1 child dies every 3 seconds in developing countries due to poverty
4) Each Person in Britain creates 10 times their own weight in household rubbish each year
5) Globally 1 child in 5 does not complete their primary education
6) A woman in sub-Saharan Africa is 100 times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than a woman in Western Europe
7) Most of the 3,000 deaths each day caused by malaria are in Africa
8) Out of 860 million illiterate adults in the world, 2/3 are women
9) Some 40 million people worldwide are living with HIV and AIDS
10) Over 1 billion people do not have safe water to drink
11) 4 out of 10 people in the world do not have access to basic sanitation 
12) Half of the worlds plants and animals could be extinct within 100 years



We then had a discussion about which of the list we though was the worst fact, doing this exercise I thought was genius because people like me who didn't know too much about poverty and the other things CAFOD tackle may have been a bit tentative about speaking up but doing this exercise was a perfect icebreaker. Regarding the question of which was worst I proposed that number 10 was the worst, or most severe  because of the fact that water is needed to live whereas by definition something like money isn't, this sparked a decent discussion on the matter and the other people in the room offered there opinion. 

What I did find interesting was just like in the last talk the amount of roles within CAFOD was above what I expected and I was surprised by how variety the roles was, for example some of the areas you can work within CAFOD are; Research, Fundraising, Marketing, Project Management, Media Work, IT and Political Liaison to name a few. When I said that I studies level 5 Media single honours at Leeds Trinity Joanne told me of some of the thing I could personally do within CAFOD and again the thing that came was "Social Media" this from what I've understood from the talks I've had this week is a key aspect the consider about employability  In relation to CAFOD Joanne said that they need people who can run there Facebook and Twitter, and keep them updated with relevant content to keep people interested, this was good for me because it made me seriously consider the voluntary sector as an option when I graduate university. 

I didn't know what to expect when I went into this talk but I found it quite inspiring  the people from CAFOD seem totally dedicated to a good cause and I feel like I would enjoy working in the voluntary sector more than I would have thought. I've only been to two out of the four talks I'm going to this week but I can already say that the talks have been a massive improvement on last year and I'm looking forward to my next two talks tomorrow.

Useful Links:
www.cafod.org.uk/

Volunteering Talk

The next talk I will be attending will be the "want to work for a charity or in the voluntary sector" talk, which will be given by Greg Lodge and Joanne Taylor from CAFOD Leeds. I am looking forward to this talk, I think it will be unique because its the only talk I am attending that is focussing on voluntary work.

Zeal Media

Zeal Media
I have just attended the first event of enterprise and employability week at Leeds Trinity University, which was a talk about digital media and how to promote yourself online, the talk was delivered by Jane Slimming of Zeal Media, Zeal Media is a digital media agency split into three parts: Zeal Digital which focussing on online advertising and marketing through means of SEO, affiliates and more, Zeal Create which focuses on web design and Zeal Buzz which is all about social media and online PR.

I thoroughly enjoyed the talk and found it interesting from start to finish, one thing that I did find intriguing was the amount of different careers that are available within a digital media company like Zeal, there are many different areas you can work in, such as; SEO, PPC, Social Media, Account Management, Design and Development etc. The thing that surprised me the most from that list though was the social media aspect, prior to this event I had no idea how complex and important the social media aspect of a business is, without a strong social media presence a business can loose clients and eventually fail. Jane then told us some of the intricacies of social media, such as never using Twitter or Facebook or any other social media platform to perform an "hard sell" you have to keep your friends and followers coming back to your channel and constantly telling them to buy something will "turn them away". Instead of the traditional "hard sell" we were told that many companies use there social media platform to give away certain things for free, this could be a voucher code, free business cards, free iTunes download; anything that will get people to come back to the social media sites, and like before prior to learning this from Jane I didn't know that was how social media worked for these sorts of media companies.

That is not all I learnt though, one other big thing I took away from this talk was a greater sense of how I could increase my chances of getting employed. To mention social media again it was mentioned during the talk that having a strong social media profile is critical to helping you get into a career, having a strong profile means making sure each of your social media profiles (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) are up to date with relevant information, and making sure you don't post thing that can potentially put of job recruiters, such as swearing or putting up pictures of yourself on a night out as they will look at your Facebook before they meet you.  

We get told all the time that experience is the most important thing when applying for a job, and this talk emphasised that greatly, Jane told us to ask an agency for one week un-paid work experience as employers will pick out who they hire on how much "relevant" experience they have. I already have a part time paid job with doing photography and work un-paid  weekly for in-house production doing all various aspects of film production but if I learnt one thing from this talk it was that I can always do more, I should be taking my career seriously and put as much of my spare time into getting experience as I can before it will be incredible valuable when I leave Leeds Trinity and apply for a job. 

One final thing we were told in regards to making ourself more employable is to be creative, we are among thousands of other students looking for jobs I need to make myself stand out. This is just he first event/talk I will be attending this week, I will be attending and righting about three more during the week, and after this talk I can say truthfully I am looking forward to attending the others 

Useful Links:
www.zealmedia.co.uk
www.twitter.com/wehavezeal 

Intro

Just started this blog to post all my thoughts about PDP this year, and specifically to talk about the events in employability week.

Just prepared for the first event now, which is the "Zeal Media: A digital media business - How to promote yourself online" talk by Jane Slimming at 1-2pm in the conference suite.

Excited for the talk and expecting to learn a lot.