Course: BSc Food & Nutrition 

Name of Placement Employer: Hallam Students’ Union  

Job Title: Digital Marketing Assistant  

 

Overall, describe your placement experience: 

My placement experience was really positive. Although I study a food and nutrition course, I really want to go into food marketing and therefore chose to complete my placement in a marketing setting. I has a placement supervisor who I had regular catch-ups with and I felt really supported. My manager also supported me with regular 1-1 catch ups and I was given the opportunity to shadow other members of the team and learn new skills in any of my areas of interest. I really enjoyed my placement as I was in a supportive team and everyday was varied, meaning the work was engaging and I was constantly learning and developing new skills.  

Describe a typical day within your placement job role: 

A typical day was a 9 - 5 in the office. I would come in catch up with emails and then every morning our team would have a 15-minute catch-up meeting to discuss what everyone was working on and firefight anything that needed doing that day and that was coming up soon. My day-to-day roles included managing our HSU events app and adding events on there, sending and scheduling notifications and contacting local businesses to establish new relationships and try to get student discounts. My other responsibilities were managing our social media platforms including Instagram and TikTok so this would include creating video content, editing and uploading. I would also write blog posts and copy for our website. At certain times of year such as welcome in September and welcome back in January I would help at our events, capturing social content, speaking to student and scanning tickets.  

What were the areas of your placement you were most worried about before starting, and how did you overcome these? 

 I was worried about entering a corporate marketing background as my experience was limited. I’d never worked in an office before and I had limited background in marketing so I was worried I wouldn’t be able to do my job properly or produce a good standard of work. However, I was supported by my line manager and had regular catch ups and feedback on my work. From day one everyone made me feel welcome and settled in really quickly. It also helped that I was one of two placement students, so I was never alone.  

 
Best part of the placement year: 

The first month or two were the best as it was exciting going into a new role, meeting new people and establishing my place within the team and wider-organisation. I was lucky to be included in a lot of new projects in this time that I got to work on throughout the year. It was also welcome/freshers around the time I joined so I was constantly busy, helping at events and producing social media content which was lots of fun.  

What are the skills you developed as a result of the placement year? 

I feel I have better time-management and project management skills and I now feel I could confidently work in a fast-paced corporate environment. I also was urged to think more critically in a marketing perspective and think more creatively. I’ve developed my design skills a lot just from shadowing and working with our designer and I feel I can produce and execute more clean and fresh social media and marketing content. I feel a lot more confident in being a social media manager now as I had a lot of tips from our marketing executive in my role. I’ve also learnt to be a lot more resilient and to trust myself a lot more as I often doubted myself but I had a lot of feedback and reassurance from my team. 

How do you think your placement year will benefit you within your final year, and applying for and securing a graduate role? 

I was lucky enough to be offered a part-time role and continue to work at the organisation where I completed my placement, so in my final year I will be able to keep building on the skills I’d developed in my placement year. Having a year of practical industry experience will benefit me when applying for graduate roles as I have an extra year of experience and a foundation of knowledge that others may not. It also makes me feel way more confident in applying for these positions as I feel I have the experience, and I feel more qualified to apply and deliver a strong, competitive application.  

 
Would you recommend other students carrying out a placement, if so why? 

I’d definitely recommend students to carry out a placement year. It gives you a taste of what life will be like when you graduate and you can also see if you enjoy the industry you’re working in. Lots of placement give you the opportunity to work in multiple departments so you can learn multiple things and try things out to see what is best suited to you which will help you out a lot when you're applying for graduate positions. Completing a placement can also be the thing that sets you aside from other candidates when you’re putting in competitive applications in your final year as you can demonstrate you have the hands-on experience and knowledge of your chosen industry. You can often take a lot of the knowledge you’ve gathered from your placement year and apply it to your final year modules which will help you out a lot.