Florence was doing an English degree, but wanted to pursue a different career path – one in the Media, Publishing and Journalism sector. In order to get support she applied for the Career Mentor Scheme and her mentor was a freelance Sports Journalist.
Florence shared more with us about the scheme.
How do you feel the career mentor scheme has helped you overall?
One way in which the Career Mentor Scheme has helped me is that it has raised my confidence about the skills that I have gathered during my time at university and how to apply them to the world of employment. I now feel as though I have the tools to gain employment in a job that I would like to pursue making it not feel like a distant pipedream but closer to reality. Similarly, the mentorship also helped me to hone in on the type of journalism that I would like to pursue in the future helping me to focus my interests and opening up different possibilities that I had not considered before.
How do you feel the mentoring process has enhanced your employability?
It has enhanced my employability tremendously. The help that I received for my CV was invaluable. It sounds silly now but before I did the scheme, I didn’t realise that there were completely different ways of structuring your CV so that it would fit the criteria of a journalist. I had always been told to follow a specific brief, but after speaking with Tim, I realised that there were things that I could include on my CV that would showcase that I had some journalistic skills in my tool kit- such as adding my Twitter handle to my contact information and writing ‘Media Experience’ rather than ‘Relevant Experience’- small things like that go a long way.
Similarly, through asking me questions that I would encounter in interviews which as I have learnt involve informal chats, such as “what would I change about my favourite magazine?”, or “Who is your favourite journalist? I was able to think through these questions and hence be able to understand the process of getting a journalist job more clearly.
What did you find most useful from the mentoring experience?
It was great to speak to somebody who had gone through the experience before. At our first meeting we had a long conversation about the best ways into the magazine industry and he told me all about the different entries into the industry which I had never thought about before. Straight away he helped me improve my CV and also told me the realities of working in journalism would be. When I was searching for internships, my mentor was always on hand to read my applications letters and offer support. In fact, I managed to secure an internship at a content marketing firm through a connection of his which resulted in being commissioned to write an article that went onto publication for the company. At this internship I was able to meet other professionals who also offered great advice and support and recommended other companies to approach in terms of work experience. Tim also encouraged me to develop some skills that I was missing such as InDesign skills and over time I have had the opportunity to do so.
Why should students apply to have a mentor?
As I said earlier it is really helpful to be able to speak to someone who has gone through what you have gone through before. It is great to speak to friends and family but it was nice to have a conversation with somebody who shared the same interests as you and could help you to understand the industry more clearly. My mentor gave me the confidence to believe that I was good enough to become a journalist and I really appreciate all the help that he gave me.