Wednesday 12 March 2014

Harriet uses flexible approach to placements

Harriet Speakman took an unconventional route to her Event Management work placement.

Instead of spending the traditional 48 weeks working for the same organisation, Harriet used the 'portfolio approach' - working on a variety of short-term projects in different areas of the events industry to gain as much experience as she could.

Her first role was with Creative Cover Hire, where she was responsible for logistics, planning and also room dressing, including a wedding for 800 at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool.

Under the University's Unite with Business scheme she then worked for Qube Events, Cheshire, where she put her venue dressing skills to good use on Bar Mitzvahs, Jewish weddings and even dressing Manchester hotels for Christmas.

Harriet now splits her time between the University Befriending Service and the Give it a Go scheme, where she is responsible for sourcing, advertising and organising trips and events for students to enable them to make new friends. For this she works closely with her peers in other universities to share best practice and ideas.

Harriet found this different approach to a placement worked well for her: "There have been some lows but I got to meet a lot of influential people. It has been a good experience and I have collected lots of business cards because you never know when they might be useful. I didn't know the industry until I did these placements – you can't get better than first hand experience."

No comments:

Post a Comment