How to help students find creative & media work experience placements

Tips for finding media work experience for students

Encourage students to do their own employer research

Help them develop essential life and work skills in line with the Skills Builder Framework:

• AIMING HIGH / PLANNING / ORGANISATION: Support students to organise and plan their research. They can draw up lists of local creative and media businesses for enquries, and search local authority websites for suitable work placements in areas like arts centres and venues. They can research these local companies to determine what the work culture is like and who they might contact to enquire about work experience. If the organisation is large enough, they may have specific windows of opportunity to request work experience.
• SPEAKING / LISTENING / COMMUNICATION: Support students to draft and send enquiry emails to employers. Their emails should include a CV and cover letter detail what they seek (e.g. work experience or work shadowing) and when they are available.
• STAYING POSITIVE / RESILIENCE: Support students to follow up on their enquiries if they do not get a response. Inspire them to consider how experience and placements in any sector or company are valuable as they offer a taste of work culture and general workplace behaviours and skills that can build career confidence. Encourage them to think more broadly about where and how they can find media work experience. For example, they could consider virtual work experience (VWEX) which more companies are beginning to offer. An example is 4Skills Work Experience, a free online work experience programme from Channel 4 and Get My First Job. It is free to use. Students aged 14+ can sign up as individuals. If you are a teacher or careers advisor, the 4Skills Work team can help your entire cohort / school / college get set up.

Encourage students to “ask a friend” (i.e. parental / social network)

You can suggest that students ask their existing networks to enquire about work experience opportunities. This could be parents / guardians and their work colleagues.

For media careers, students may already be tapped into social networks which are relevant to the creative industry and could help them source placements.

Work placements? Or work shadowing?

If finding media work experience is proving a challenge, you can also encourage your students to look for media work shadowing opportunities. Work shadowing, the experience of watching a media professional at work, is in itself a valuable form of work encounter in line with Gatsby benchmarks.

Further support for teachers

Here at Mediorite, we can help your students build these skills through MovieMagic outreach sessions. We also offer media work experience encounters for London schools and colleges including real-life masterclasses and work placements.

Contact us for more information.

Build relationships with local creative and media companies

Thinking beyond work experience deadlines

It’s to your benefit to build relationships with local creative businesses over time, not just in those rushed periods when you need to find work placements for your media students.

If you invest in building these relationships, you can activate them when you need them. Meeting deadlines related to finding media work placements will be that much easier.

Maybe that local media company can:

• Do an assembly talk or presentation
• Do mock interviews with your media students
• Let you know when they are ready to offer work placements, if they don’t currently have the infrastructure for them

Ask businesses what THEY need

That way the relationship can be of mutual benefit! For example, when Mediorite offer training courses and media work placements, we need to be able to survey the young people involved so that we can be transparent and accountable in terms of our social impact.

Match interested students with researched companies

Finally – of course it’s a challenge to find work encounters and experiences for media students with different levels of interest and ability. Building longstanding relationships with local creative businesses helps to ensure you can send students to an encounter that will interest them, in a workplace that both you/they have researched.

This will help to create a strong foundation of engagement and confidence, which is a key aim of careers education practices.

Great relationships are built on mutual understanding.

Further support for teachers

When we offer in-office media work placements and work shadowing, it is within the London area. Here’s an example media work placement case study from one of our placements, Stanley (15). We also offer a range of courses and experiences related to teaching media careers.

You’re welcome to contact us – we’d love to hear from you.

Create real-life college work experiences for L1 / L2 media students

The creative industry is volatile. If you have a large cohort of students, getting them all work placements can be tricky, to put it lightly. Sometimes, teachers and careers leaders need to spread the net wide and dream up a rewarding and meaningful Plan B.

Create experiences of work-based media projects in your school or college

The purpose of this activity will be to engage your cohorts in a media project that will be used as part of your school or college marketing, creating an experience of what it’s like to work in the media sphere. Students will get a real-life experience, and the college will get youth-led social media content with deliverables, themes and creative approaches in line with their brief.

1. Take a real live brief from the college’s internal marketing team or student welfare team
2. This brief should outline a media project that students can deliver which will be used by the college’s marketing team
3. Support students to pitch ideas for how they would approach the brief
4. Gather feedback from the ‘client’ (e.g. the marketing or student welfare team)
5. Support the students to create and deliver the brief for final approval and use in the real world.

Further support for teachers

If this sounds like a lot of work when you’re time-poor, we can help.

In just two hours, Mediorite’s SHOOTING FOR THE EDIT masterclass can take your students through briefs and planning.

For more intensive training for college students aged 18+, we also offer the ReelStart Academy training course to your students in your place of learning.

If you’d like to know more, please contact us and we’d be pleased to chat through what you want and need.

Helping students make the most of media work experience placements

Help prepare students in advance.

• Encourage them to be proactive and broaden their horizons when researching and enquiring about media placements and work shadowing.
• Support them with creating brief CVs and cover letters tailored to their media strengths and interests.
• Be aware that many students may feel their social skills and confidence have been impacted by lockdown and post-pandemic uncertainty, so they may need reassurance in securing and attending placements
• Remind them there’s no such thing as a silly question during placements. Everyone in the workplace will be pleased to answer any questions, from “where’s the toilet?” to “how did you get started in your career?” Some students may be grateful if you print out example icebreakers or career-related questions in advance that they can ask if they choose to.
• Encourage them to give everything their best shot, whatever the activity – it’s a chance for them to discover what they like (and don’t like) about all aspects of creative careers and employers!
• Record their daily placement activities, along with what skills they used (e.g. listening, speaking, teamwork, creativity, problem solving, aiming high) and any personal achievements. This will help with fleshing out their CV, and also when seeking further training, education or employment later down the line.
• Keep contact details of the employer and their work experience supervisor. This could help with future networking.
• After the placement, ask them to reflect on their experience and how it related to their skills, confidence, and and careers they may want to explore further in future.

About Mediorite

We are a video production company based in London and Leeds with 15 years of experience. Our social enterprise has award-winning social impact due to our activities related to helping diverse young people gain confidence, experience and training in film and media careers. Young people are the heart of our mission.