Work Experience: Providing Opportunities for Both Businesses & Emerging Talent

Work experience opens doors for all kinds of talent. Here at EDGE we support this through:

• Closing skill gaps
• Supporting Career Progression
• Mutual Relationships
• Nurturing Talent
• Get in touch

At EDGE Creative, educating and nurturing emerging talent is ingrained in our ethos. That’s why we strongly believe in providing opportunities that can help people with their growth and development.

Our creative agency in Birmingham strives to support the marketing industry by helping the next generation of marketeers gain valuable work experience, especially people living locally to help enrich our industry and support our community on a local scale.

In fact, over the past two weeks we took on a student from the University of Birmingham, who is studying their BA in English. She has worked alongside our content department to gain knowledge and insight into a potential career progression.

Below we have outlined the key benefits of supporting young talent within your business and the industry at large. We also have insight from our work experience student on their experience at EDGE Creative.

1)   Closing the skills gap

The gap between university and the working world can be vast. Many students graduate with lots of knowledge on their chosen subject, however, they have limited knowledge on the workplace and what the marketing industry involves.

As a result, offering work experience within this sector can massively benefit marketing agencies and other businesses that employ marketeers in-house in terms of bridging this skills gap. Especially as work experience can help to finetune pre-existing transferable skills that students and young people have gained, getting them better prepared for the workplace.

When it comes to mindset, there can also be a large gap. Entering the working world offers a completely new challenge and experience to students, which can sometimes come as a shock to students. Having an experience in work allows the students to take on more responsibilities and acquaint themselves with a structured workday. 

2)    Supporting the career progression of young people

When it comes to carrying out a work experience placement, there are endless skills for an individual to learn. Some of these include confidence, teamwork and time management, as well as the previously mentioned industry-specific skills.

Encouraging the career progression of young people is also a great way to give back as a company. Every CEO and Creative Director once had to start somewhere, so having that recognition as a company can be crucial to nurturing the future of your industry. As our Creative Director, Louise Panayides explains:

“It’s so important for employers to invest in young talent and help to close the skills gap between being a student and being an employee because the two are so separate.

At EDGE Creative, we want to enhance the student experience by leveraging the knowledge and skills that students already have and help them identify and forecast the necessary expertise for industry.”

3)   It’s a mutual relationship!

It’s not only students that can benefit from work experience. Integrating young people into the workplace is a great way to inject new energy and ideas into the company – as with different generational experiences and insight, there is always a new perspective that can be utilised.

Not only is having a work experience candidate extremely beneficial for their personal career growth and development, but it is also crucial for maintaining a flow of fresh ideas into businesses and the industry.

Nurturing young talent

Over the past two weeks, Emily, a BA student who is currently studying English and the University of Birmingham, has been working alongside our team in the content department.

As a student of English Literature, she was eager to explore where her skills and enthusiasm for communication and writing could take her – and we are pleased to have watched her develop her confidence and skills mature every day under the “wing” of our Content Manager, Ellena.

She has been working across a range of marketing avenues, from optimising her content writing for SEO and crafting strategic posts for different social platforms, to learning about HTML coding and graphic formulation for emails, giving her a chance to explore what EDGE Creative is all about.

HERE’S WHAT EMILY HAD TO SAY ABOUT HER EXPERIENCE:

“During the past two weeks, I have been lucky enough to carry out a work experience placement with EDGE Creative. Nestled in the copywriting department, under the wing of content manager Ellena, I got to explore everything EDGE.

Work experience can not only teach you about fields that you want to go into, but it can also open doors to fields you never even considered before. I would never have believed that I would be interested in coding or understanding SEO jargon, but seeing it applied to a creative backdrop gave it a whole new meaning. This has been especially highlighted by the endless applications within an agency; from luxury bathrooms and the financial sector to transport logistics and IT solutions, each sector gives your work a whole new light and meaning.

More than this, it helps you make fundamental connections. There is not one person in the office who doesn’t have something to teach me, and so having that introduction is so important to my career as well as personal growth. In this respect, it has also allowed me to gain confidence that I can interact and feel comfortable in a corporate environment, unlike anything I could experience as a student.

Being reintroduced to a full working day is something that can’t go without mentioning. It is no secret that students don’t have the most structured days, so, therefore, navigating and structuring a working day to maximise productivity is something I am sure will benefit me further down the line.

Overall, I have found my work experience to be nothing but positive and inspiring. I am extremely grateful for this opportunity and would recommend it and EDGE Creative endlessly. I absolutely cannot wait to come back and continue my journey with EDGE Creative this summer.”

EDGE Creative

Our digital marketing agency in Birmingham focuses on fully integrated creative solutions. We tailor to everything creative, from strategy and events to digital and websites.

Although were based in Birmingham, we support businesses up and down the country, helping them to achieve their goals, from building a new website that will perform to devising a long-term SEO strategy to increase traffic and drive conversions.

Want to learn more about our services? Simply get in touch with our team of experts to start maximising your marketing efforts today!