Placements – Stef’s experience

Placements, whether they’re a few weeks or a few months, are crucial to beefing up your CV and giving you the chance to put the skills that you learn on your course into practice. They’ll give you an edge over other graduates when you finish uni and in some cases, can even lead to a job.

Stef is a final year Business Management with Marketing student, she’s written about her placement and gives her tips for getting the most out of yours. 

“I’m doing a four year sandwich course so during my placement year, I did a year at Walt Disney in two departments; The Walt Disney Music Group (DMG) and Disney Media+, as a Marketing Assistant, between 2013 and 2014.

Getting a job at Disney was like a dream come true. I have been a Disney fan since I was little so I was extremely excited to work for my favourite company.

Whilst in DMG I worked on very successful projects such as Frozen, where I provided project management support and produced and distributed marketing reports that would track the soundtrack/artists performance/position within the European music charts.

Event management was a large part of my role too, I organised the departments’ annual Town Hall Event for EMEA and Burbank HQ colleagues, in-house screenings for the latest releases, assisted the organisation of artist promotional trips and co-ordinated the US senior executives trips to the UK.

I was also responsible for creating content and copywriting for digital platforms, including the DMG Twitter/Facebook and the Walt Disney e-newsletter (with an audience of 1+million) that would feature the latest soundtrack or artist releases.

As an intern I was a key point of contact for the department, for the internal departments such as the studios and channel teams. This was a great opportunity for me to develop my interpersonal skills and the departments’ relationships internally and externally to the company.

Working at Disney came with its perks, like the chance to see Disney films, meet the characters and work based events such as gigs at the O2 and music events at the Royal Albert Hall. I was also able to attend three premieres during my time at the company – The Lone Ranger, Captain America, and Thor: The Dark World, which were all amazing!

It was really fun working in such a friendly and creative environment. The company has lots of interns so it was really easy making friends with others in the same position as me.

My advice for other students is don’t give up! Internships are very competitive as there can be limited places. I had a total of 20 interviews: ten face-to-face, and ten phone interviews, as well as studying, during my second year. It takes up a lot of time to produce application forms, cover letters and amending your CV to different roles or companies, so 100% dedication is necessary.

My top-tip would be to, think about what industry/industries you like (or one you can envisage yourself in) then think about what sector within that company you’d like to work e.g. HR, Marketing, Sales etc.

Once you have this basis your passion and drive for the specific industry you have chosen will come across a lot easier (in interviews and application forms) than it would if you’re applying for everything and anything, like I did.”

Find out about what it’s like to do a placement at the BBC in graduate Naomi’s blog post here and take a look at our handy tips on how to impress on your placement here.