Even though many of our graduates will have progressed in their careers since completing a case study, they are still of interest to students who wish to gain an understanding of the world of work.

I lead the coordination for a varied range of external facing projects, ranging from Business Development to Fundraising Events, ensuring they are effectively supported from conception to production; assisting with project briefs and being the first port of call to filter briefing documents and identify gaps with the client, organise comms meetings with relevant colleagues, manage workflow production with all relevant teams (i.e. Digital, Creative and Media) and revisit/amend as necessary.

Lead coordination of all external facing communication projects:
- ensure relevant teams are involved in planning stages
- support development of project briefs and work with marketing to refine key messages and target audiences
- ensure realistic time-frames are agreed for all projects and target audiences are involved in shaping their development
- develop and maintain processes and documentation for managing projects effectively.

Support planning, monitoring and performance reporting:
- ensure timely and accurate reporting on projects and performance across the directorate
- coordinate the development of annual plans and budgets.

Ensure activities of the External Relations Directorate are communicated effectively internally and externally and contribute to team building:
- coordinate updates on Directorate activities for the Board, directors team and corporate documents.

Responding to emails regarding projects (existing projects/new project proposals etc) - answering queries/including colleagues as necessary.

Manage workflow for production teams - this needs updating constantly, to show the tracking of a project and its progress.

Organising/leading communications meetings - these are usually to discuss a new project with relevant colleagues or to regroup on existing projects and plan next stages.

Assist with any queries regarding project work - issues with concepts/queries as to capacity of production teams/skills of productions teams - for example, deciding if an animation can be designed in-house or if it needs to go to an agency, digital relevant questions - for example, booking of social media, how to write a brief for a digital campaign.

Essentially very varied!

Multiple tasks in one day so doesn't feel too mundane.
Opportunities to develop and delve into many different career paths.
Dealing with people!

Keeping up with new challenges in the industry.
New focus on digital has shown that I have areas where I need to upskill.
Stakeholder management is always challenging!
Have to be really good at multitasking - sometimes difficult to know where to start!

Keen interest in the charity sector - especially the healthcare sector.
Get to use my people and communication skills.
Lovely sector to work in - it feels nice to make a difference.
Lots of varied work so doesn't get boring and progression opportunities - e.g. learning digital project skills, project management opportunities.

Definitely skills from my degree in terms of being able to work independently and in a group/team.

Psychology was very broad with different modules so this makes me feel like I can tackle different tasks quite easily just as I had to tackle learning about children one minute and the brain the next!

Analysis skills (conducting and analysing questionnaire/survey data) - very relevant in project management and whether a project was successful or not.

Ability to delegate tasks, prioritise and manage own workload.

Training on software and general training for the job role such as conducting an interview.

Potential for funding for further study/masters

Voluntary HR Assistant at Halfords - to gain experience to boost my CV.

Entailed generalist admin roles and HR specific roles such as sending out contracts for new starters - this led to my first job!

This year I have enrolled on the Google Squared Digital Marketing course.

I imagine I will stay in this line of work. I am interesting in working in a creative agency, in a project management/planning capacity, as I like being able to work with the Digital and Creative teams even though I don't feel I am particularly creative minded - but agencies work on lots of different products, which would be really varied and interesting!

I am keen to move to digital project coordination/management - I think this is what many businesses will need in the future so keen to get in to this market and move in to important positions and lead on huge business changing projects!

Show commitment to a role - don't turn down voluntary roles as they could be your foot in the door (but don't work full time for nothing!)

Show involvement in activities as University.

Office roles in general are a good step forward into the 'professional world'

Show active use of apps/social media platforms - personal and business (for example, LinkedIn and Twitter).

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Be curious and keep up with our changing world!