Don’t panic and find just any job!

Bobbi Simmonds, Sales and Retail Intern at NBCUniversal Media

We’re catching up with our alumni to find out how their time at Brighton is helping them in their careers. We caught up with Bobbi Simmonds, who studied our four-year Business Management with Marketing BSc(Hons) and is now a Sales and Retail Intern at NBCUniversal Media.

Can you give our students three tips for finding a job?

1. Research the company you are interviewing for! This was ultimately what made me successful, I was lucky as I had worked with my current team during my placement year so I understood what the team I would be joining does, I conveyed this in my presentation, as I was able to identify what they were doing well and offer my advice for improvement.
2. Don’t panic and find just any job! I felt panicked in my final year to make sure I had a job when I left uni, this meant that I took the first job that I was offered even though I knew it wasn’t really what I wanted to do. I ended up working there for 8 days before starting my job at NBC Universal!
3. Show that you’re excited to be there and that you are eager to learn. Most people won’t really know exactly what the job entails day to day, but it’s important that you show that you are keen and that you’re ready to learn and make the most of every opportunity. You can teach most people how to do a job so they are more interested to see that you’re willing to get stuck in!

The thing I love most about my job is that the work I do is relevant to what is going on in the world. Nearly every week there is a new title releasing, from Paw Patrol to Baywatch no week is ever the same.

My favourite thing about my job is that I get to see the work that I am doing in highstreet retailers, from Primark to Waitrose I can walk into a shop and see the work that I have done executed in stores!

In what way is your degree/university experience relevant? After my placement year I knew that I wanted to pursue a career in retail, I was lucky at Brighton as I was able to choose my modules in my final year and therefore tailor them to better suit a retail career. The most relevant module to my job today is Retail Marketing, this module taught me retail strategy and to think about the end consumer and this has helped me to understand my customers today and how to work collaboratively together to create exciting campaigns at retail.

Other modules like Managing and Developing People helped me to understand what it is like to work for a co-operation and how to communicate professionally with my colleagues and my customers.

Thanks!
Bobbi