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.

On the Government Communication Service (GCS) Fast Stream, I work on high profile communication projects which aim to better the lives of people working in the UK - be it through promoting new policies which will help them, or running public information campaigns, or asking their opinions.
I rotate through different government departments and different areas of the communications profession including: media and PR, strategic communications, campaigns and marketing, stakeholder engagement, insight and evaluation, internal communications.

At the moment I work as a Senior Press Officer at the Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government. There is no typical day in this role. I could be doing anything from writing a press release to make that evening news, filming and creating digital content, briefing Ministers for interviews, reacting to breaking news stories.

The Fast Stream rotates me around lots of areas of communication and I get to work of many different policy areas and projects and the variety certainly keeps my job interesting. I'm also a big people person and my job requires me to work with many different internal and external stakeholders.

Government Communications has never been a more challenging profession than now - the political landscape is volatile and means that getting important messages out to people who need to hear them can be tricky. This is why creative and strategic thinking is so important.

I love to be creative but I also relish working strategically. Working in government communications means that I get to do both everyday. I also wanted to do something that felt worthwhile, and the civil service has a strong sense of purpose to better the lives of everyone living in the UK.

I use a whole range of communication skills everyday. I have to have extremely strong written and verbal communications, and be digitally literate. I also have to have great people skills. This job also requires tenacity, resilience and curiosity.

On the GCS Fast Stream I have undertaken high quality courses which introduce me to the comms profession and government communications profession. I have also undertaken the Fast Stream core curriculum which trains me up to be a future leader - these learning sessions include managing change, leading in ambiguity, presenting confidently and having quality conversations.

Next year I will do a post-graduate diploma in Strategic Communications which is recognised by the Chartered Institute of Marketing.

During my first 6 months I worked as a stakeholder manager on the Census 2021 campaign. I then spent 6 months as a campaigns officer at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
I am now a senior press officer at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

In a few years time I would love to be a Head of Campaigns and Marketing in a central government department, particularly a department which works with international audiences, or diverse community groups.
To help me achieve this goal, and be good at it when I get it, I hope to do a Masters in Intercultural Communication.

I would advise any student who wants to work for government or who wants to work in communications to do something that requires energy, creativity and curiosity. Do something that you are passionate about so that you have something that you can talk about passionately. This will also come across well in an interview situation.
At this stage in you career employers and assessors don't need you have all the refined communication skills yet, they just need to know you will be willing to learn and to get stuck in.

Carys  BA Philosophy (2020)
Generalist, Civil Service Fast Streamer  (Business, administration and public sector)

Accepts questions from students about their career