This year’s Creative Careers Festival held on the 25^th April was excellent. There were a mix of businesses there doing different things and in need of fresh new talent. I was fortunate as I already knew of some of the companies there, such as Red Sprout and Moodle Media.

I used this event to put my networking skills to the test and I didn’t do too badly. I came armed with business cards and my ambition. I started at Red Sprout’s table, I knew of them because I followed them on Facebook, they are a recruitment agency for creative digital companies. From them I found out that they have placed students in a variety of businesses and Red Sprout are more active on LinkedIn. Mark from Red Sprout suggested that I add him and his colleague, Olivia, on LinkedIn and speak to the people at Finally’s table because they had recently placed a CCCU student with them. That one chat got me two more LinkedIn contacts and a lead to a company that might be able to help me develop my web design skills.

On my way round the tables my eye was caught by Think Big Tech, I had never heard of them, so I stopped and asked what they did. Chris told me that they are a company based in Sandwich and they are developing a programme to go and teach computer coding to primary school children. This guy’s enthusiasm blew me away; he is hoping that this programme will expand and more schools will get involved. I said I was interested and Chris said send over your C.V.

I managed to get to Finally’s table and told them what I was looking for, which is work experience, and how do I go about applying for it with them. I was told to send them the best email I have sent telling them why it would be beneficial for me as well as them to take me on for work experience.

I strolled around a bit more and spotted Moodle Media also known as Molly. I had added Molly on LinkedIn a while back, just before the Media, Art and Design event in 2017 where I met her for the first time. I had just finished my foundation year and was testing the waters to see what areas could potentially interest me and just to see what was out there. I sat at Molly’s table and she remembered me almost instantly and we began chatting, we discussed social media as I run a Facebook page for a local company so this was a perfect opportunity to ask an expert for some tips. Molly as always was incredibly helpful offering ideas that could help progress the page further, I also told her how much I enjoy generating content as I am passionate about creating pictures and videos. As a result she put an opportunity of work experience to me.

So all in all I got two new LinkedIn contacts, an awareness of new companies, three potential work experience placements, brushed up on my networking skills and re-connected with a previous contact. Not bad for one afternoon.