Media Futures: alumni day

Here at the School of Media we’re committed to giving you the skills to be industry ready and our graduates are proving exactly that.

We invited some of our alumni to come back and speak on a panel discussion to our current students about the fantastic careers they’ve gone in to since graduating from university last year.

The panel

Georgia Hope - Casting Researcher

Georgia is currently at ITV working as a Casting Researcher on this summer’s series of Love Island. She went straight into employment after in the television industry after graduation, working as a runner on Big Brother. Since then she has worked on a lot of different reality and entertainment programmes, as well as a few documentaries. Some of the shows she's worked on include Take Me Out, Inside the Operating Theatre, The Circle and Made in Chelsea.

Maddy McCrann-Smith - PR, Communications and Social Media Executive

Maddy works as a PR Executive for Spottydog Communications. She worked closely with the Spottydog team during her third year at university, which helped her develop a strong understanding of clients as well as become familiar with the team and how they work together to deliver the best results for their clients. She also had the opportunity to complete a number of placements while studying after winning the PR category for BHive Creative 2017.

Leonie Buck- Production Manager

Whilst at BCU, Leonie completed work experience across different forms of media such as a photography assistant, radio assistant producer and station controller for Scratch Radio. She also completed two weeks at The Voice UK before landing a position as a Production Management Intern at Channel 5 with a one-year contract. She's since worked on BAFTA award winning series, Cruising with Jane McDonald and is currently working on a documentary about a high-profile police case from the early 2000s.

Tom Hall - Imaging Producer

Tom currently works for Bauer Media as an Imaging Producer across both national and local brands including Hits Radio, Greatest Hits Radio, Free Radio and Gem. As a student he conducted a week’s work placement with Global Radio News Team as a broadcast journalist, undertaking jobs such as social media management, interview editing and news bulletin recording.

Beatrice Edwards - Public Relations

During Beatrice’s three years at university she specialised in music industries and created a PR campaign for her third-year final project. Three months after graduation, Beatrice gained a four-month internship at Riot Communications based in London. Getting this provided her with the necessary skills to gain her job in a PR agency specialising in arts and culture. As well as speaking about their current roles and their individual journeys, our alumni panel also gave students some great tips for their future careers.

As well as speaking about their current roles and their individual journeys, our alumni panel also gave students some great tips for their future careers.

Tips and advice

Be flexible when looking for jobs after you graduate. Going to interviews can really help you as they show you the variations of each company.

Many companies use the same role names, but they have different meanings. Make sure you plan out which areas you are interested in and look closely at the job descriptions.

Tailor your CV to suit different companies with relevant experience. Put something at the beginning which will make you stand out.

Take advantage of work experience opportunities. By doing work experience in my second year I was offered a job in third year. A good platform for finding a job is LinkedIn.

Media futures alumni panel 2 The panel discussion was part of our Media Futures fortnight, which aimed to help students prepare for their future careers. It was jam-packed full of people for students to network and build contacts with and included workshops on everything from dissertation advice to freelancing , a magical mystery tour trip and discussions from industry experts including Game of Thrones star, Maisie Williams!