LSM’s second year student Rosie Turner is on our mentoring pilot between industry professionals and undergraduates. Rosie’s media mentor is 2006 graduate Katy Atkinson who runs a successful not-for-profit media production company called The Reporters’ Academy, based in Manchester. Next month, Katy has kindly arranged a MediaCityUK tour for Rosie and the two will continue to discuss career strategy. For now, Rosie has this super story to share.

Hi, I’m a Television and Photography student. Here’s a little piece on my recent job success at Channel 4.  I’ll be working as a Social Networker and Photographer as part of the 4Crew team, travelling around the UK to film and document 4Talent Days.  

I had heard about the job whilst working for the 4Talent department last summer through work experience so when the opportunity was posted online in February I quickly applied and crossed my fingers. At the start of March I had an e-mail back saying I was successful and invited down to London for a day-long interview at Channel 4. After an initial panic because my train was over an hour late and a little jog from one side of Westminster to the other, I made it to the interview, where I met all of the candidates for all job roles (Reporter, Director, Production Manager & Social Networker) within the 4crew team. The first task was a pitch presentation and I was up first! I had 3-4 minutes to sell myself with my presentation that I’d practised all week and had learnt word by word.

The second task was a group exercise, where we were split into two teams and asked to develop a plan for a 4Talent day video. After this stage half of the candidates were sent home and the rest and myself went through for one to one interviews. I was amazed at how relaxed the interview process was I don’t think I’ve ever been for a job and been offered pick ’n’ mix and a cup of tea while I waited to be called in but I think that’s what makes Channel 4 such a dynamic and fresh employer, that they’re always striving to be different. This difference is something that is definitely reflected in their interview style as well. The department did ask some standard questions such as “Why do you want the job?” and “what is the best team you’ve worked in?” but we spent most of the 15 minutes talking about my favourite television programmes and what I’d made for my evening meal the night before last.

I’m a strong believer in being honest and polite. Yes you have to be tough in media to get to where you want to be but you also need to be a pleasure to work with. When asked in my interview ‘How do you make your own luck?’ my answer was “I don’t believe in luck. I work hard, I honestly love what I do and I just get creative” Yes there was a moment of silence where I considered asking if that was an inappropriate answer but instead I was offered the job a few hours later and instructed to ‘Go out and get drunk, We’ll see you next week!’.

Now that I am part of 4Crew I feel that I am finally making headway with my career and am part of something where I can inspire other people as well as build on my own experiences. I’m really looking forward to working with my all girl team, especially Aleysha Minns, who is a recent graduate from the University of Lincoln School of Media and has a job as Production Manager for 4Crew. It’s going to be amazing to say that we’re both from Lincoln and The School of Media.

My job role within 4Crew involves updating the 4Talent social media platforms in order to promote the talent days, planning social media strategies and photographing each event.  With my job at Channel 4 I get the opportunity to travel around the UK every other month as part of the 4crew team, visiting different towns and cities. The first event is hosted in Greenwich, London and after that I will be going to Bristol in June.

If you are interested in attending a 4Talent day then check out either the website or its twitter page. 

I will also be regularly posting on my own blog and Twitter so please do check that out too!

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Congrats to you Rosie, and Aleysha, from the LSM et al. We look forward to updates from you about 4Crew and about the mentoring, too. Snaps of MediaCity to come …