I have gained good customer service skills through working in retail and hospitality – using my understanding of the customer or audience, my skills and their expectations and needs. I judged well the mix of service and attention needed, as well as professionalism and policy. I practised this skill working for Marks and Spencers and Blue Arrow – both of which pride themselves on their high standards, particularly in service. This gained loyalty and gratitude from customers and was evidenced through service awards, nominated by both colleagues and customers, and business to business employer recommendations about myself. I feel customer service skills can only be furthered by continuing practice of them.

 

Leadership skills were illustrated throughout various academic roles, such as Head Girl at Sixth Form and Student Academic Leader at University, undertaking a First Aid role in a previous workplace and volunteering for stage management roles in theatrical productions. My leadership roles have benefitted from my completion of a Public Speaking course. My leadership has either created a sense of society and good working relationship (for example, being Head Girl), or work and people management (training new starters in retail, as well as Stage Management volunteering) – considering others’ abilities, and the functionality of each person and process to best distribute jobs. My First Aid role required me to be calm under pressure and taught me to judge how to best control situations. I learnt a lot from this in terms of confidence and trusting your abilities, judgement and knowledge. This has also made me realise I want to continue to further these leadership skills, either through situations in University and coursework, or in day to day working situations; I will endeavour to take as many opportunities as possible to continue to increase my skills and confidence in leadership, with the aim of being able to use this leadership in projects in the future that will have a positive result and impact.

 

Media production/design skills I have include Adobe programmes such as Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Premiere, After Effects and Bridge. These are all evidenced in my portfolio on my online profile, showing the range of skills I have and techniques I can use. I hope to further my abilities in this area during my time on the Media and Communications course, as well as furthering practice in my own time by creating more projects using these programmes.

 

Experiences of Event Planning gained through academic positions, such as Head Girl, or through personal projects, fundraising and work experiences, have helped me gain many useful skills for the media industry as well as transferable skills. I have learnt to organise my time well to meet deadlines and to organise research and planning in clear, methodical ways. My problem-solving and negotiation skills have benefitted from these Event Planning experiences. I am able to understand the people and processes I work with to come to a compromised mutual agreement, as well as being able to foresee any possible problems that may occur in working processes – something which I hope to continue to improve on. I have practised teamwork skills on many occasions, but they were furthered while working on an assignment for my Events and Exhibition Planning module. I worked in a team with one other person, using both our skills productively, to create an event plan. Working well together helped me develop my communication skills, as well as building these through work experiences I’ve had in retail, working as part of a sales floor team.

 

My media skills have also been extended in numerous situations practising public relations and promoting. I first developed these through Media Studies A-Level, before volunteering at a radio station in a PR role, and more recently taking the Media Relations module at University. While volunteering at a radio station, I helped the station gain sponsorships and reach their audience more effectively, through researching and monitoring their social media interactions and activity. My media relations module has helped me to use these skills in a more professional manner in the media industry, learning how to produce press releases, press packs, distribution lists and pitches to a high standard. I hope to further this experience by creating public relations and promotional content for a wider variety of situations and causes.

 

- Created for the Professional Media Practice University module, ​November 2016