My week at We Are Futures for work experience
Written by Amelie Duval from The London Oratory School.
When my school first mentioned that we would all have one allocated week of work experience, I did not think much of it. I was already intimidated, as all 17-year-olds are, of what career path was right for me and what different jobs involve.
As a humanity student, I knew I wanted to do something creative, and working at We Are Futures sounded like the perfect opportunity to create and collaborate, putting into practice the theories I had learned about in business studies at school. I wanted to explore if I would like to work in somewhere like a marketing agency and open my mind to what this industry entails...
Throughout the week the company certainly kept us busy with a plethora of interesting and practical tasks. We started by planning and researching TikTok ideas for Vicki, the New Business and Marketing Manager. When directing and organising these TikTok's we sharpened our project management skills and creativity. We also got to be a part of a focus group for Infinity Water with primary school kids and take some notes for James, a Senior Strategist. This online focus group taught us about the psychological strategies for dealing with different target markets. For example: the images in the presentation were provocative, while being suited to things children like and understand. This activity was especially interesting as we learn about primary research at school and we were able to see this put it into practice.
Our week had its fair share of obstacles, but the team were incredible at helping us, arranging Teams meetings to give us feedback on our tasks and making it crystal clear that if we needed them, they were always open to help.
One of the highlights was working on the Youth Digest newsletter, a summary of the latest news stories which would be sent out via email to the entire company on the Friday. The team let us have creative freedom and we enjoyed writing about news stories that interested us and what we had seen circulating on social media, rather than being told what to write about.
Another highlight was undoubtedly the 5-minute presentation we had to give at the company ‘Here’s Where We’re Going’ meeting on Wednesday. While initially daunting to present in front of the team, it was a fantastic opportunity to practice our public speaking skills. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive and overall, the experience was extremely rewarding.
Some other exciting activities included creating an excel document and drafting an email for a client, a marketing and communications task where we came up with marketing strategies for our favourite brand, a retail research task and scanning various media platforms to find entries for the #SkyArts competition.
In summary, this week has been an enlightening experience. Not just from completing the set tasks but from the skills we gained from completing them. The Team was so supportive and welcoming, making the week simultaneously fun and beneficial. As a result, I have become much more confident and capable of various skills.
Thank you We are Futures!