I Got Hired: Sophie

Posted on: 24 September 2024 by Richard Finch in Class of 2023

Sophie Flanagan is a Class of 2023 English Language graduate who now works as a Communications and Marketing Assistant at Primary Care 24.

How did you hear about your role and decide to apply for it?

I heard about the role through social media and applied through there. Although I wasn't 100% sure on what I wanted to do as a career, I seemed to have most of the skills and experience this role was asking for, plus it was creative which sounded exciting!

How did you get to where you are now?

During my degree, I tried to gain as much work experience as possible. I was a research assistant in my second year, for a linguistic project about children's reading and writing development, the Writing Over Time Project. I really enjoyed this, especially running the project's website and social media over the summer.

I took the SOTA300 module in my third year, where I worked with the University of Liverpool's English Department as their Digital Communications Officer. I interviewed academics about their research projects, updated the university's website and created online content for students to encourage them to see the value in studying English, and to give them an insight into the department's culture.

These two roles helped me to put the skills I had developed during my studies into practice in the context of a work environment, and I realised that I enjoyed working in communications, so I started to research job opportunities that were related to this.

Your favourite experience as part of your role?

I think my favourite thing is the freedom to be creative and to try new things, and even if the ideas aren't conventionally successful, I am learning that every experience is a learning curve - you work what works for you out as you go along.

The most challenging part of your graduate journey?

I think one of the hardest things is how much competition is out there. There are hundreds of people applying for one job, especially in the marketing and communications fields. I had applied for quite a few roles, and it was discouraging to not hear back from most of them. I had to really think about what skills I had, and the specific examples of how I had developed them.

Top 3 Tips for current students and graduates:

1. Be patient for the right opportunity to come along.
2. You might not get your dream job straight away - that's the case for most people and this is completely okay.
3. Experience is important, do as much work/volunteering experience as you can during the summer - no experience is bad experience.     

 
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