Unit 2- Learning Aim D

 

Learning Aim D: Use Networking Techniques to Explore Employment Opportunities in the Digital Media Industry.

When it comes to Networking, nowadays is one of the main aspects of your profile in the media industry. Personally, I own a website on blogger that shows all the tasks I have worked on, and I add all the ones I am the proudest of. The showreel is also a way for an employer to understand what skills I have built and what kind of experiences I already have.

Websites

During the lessons of Skills Development course, I created my very own website on Wix for a task that I have been given. To create a website, I had to follow a template, since I am not able to codify websites from scrap. With some of the pre-set inputs I followed one easy pattern to show a presentation of myself and my works. The website is still unfinished so I will still have to work on it. When I will finish it, I will publish it, when it will be done, it will have the best aesthetic and it will be clear to understand what I want to show to the audience.

 

Linking to the website, we were also asked to create our own LinkedIn accounts (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mayank-express-b05154200/) to create a profile that would promote my work and a developed profile would also help me to get into future employment places.

A lot of people use the LinkedIn profile to use it as a portfolio, and this is what I want to do with my profile as well, to understand how the website works I still must learn how to use all the feature that it offers. It is the first time that I use LinkedIn, so I still must understand how it works.

On my profile I already added my skills, the languages I speak to show what my persona can do. Then I also added where I worked and my past education to show my past experiences, I will be able to also show my present work just as my Wix website, I will also carry on improving and developing my profile as I go on.

 

Then I created my own Showreel using Blogger (https://mayankkumarshowreelmedia.blogspot.com/) I uploaded the work I’m the most proud of on a new blogger page I created for my showreel, using a website I was already familiar with, since I used it for 2 years. I added my CV and my business card, those were the new features that I had to work on from scrap, while all the other posts were just straight took from my old posts.

When I was creating the new posts, I made sure I would only upload my best projects, and the ones that would show employers what I am able to do, and the ones that looked professional enough to be ready to look like professional enough to be compared to real industry work.

Before I created my showreel I wanted to guide some research first since I had to learn how a real showreel needs to look like, how people make it catchy and how to add the main characters about yourselves in the least amount information.

I also looked for a layout media related, and I used it to keep my portfolio short, simple, and clean. To keep it organised I also added labels, titles, and short description for each post I added on the blog.

That’s how I always worked on blogger, and when uploading my work, I was used to label it, title it, and keep it organised to know how every assignment of mine was related to each other. When I started the college during my first year, that was the first time I started using blogger and since then I learned how to use it for every kind of work I need to do.

Blogger 2020/2021: https://mayankkumarv2.blogspot.com/

Blogger 2019/2020: https://mayankmediablog.blogspot.com/

 

Work Experience

In 2019, our college, being partner with the University of Sunderland, I had the opportunity to take part in a work experience. I spent most of my time working with the team of the radio community called Spark FM (https://www.sparksunderland.com/) . Spark FM is a radio station that works for Sunderland for a target audience that goes from 15 to 30 ears olds. The work experience lasted three days, I helped pretty much most of the sectors that Spark FM covers up, from speaking, to playing music, to reading news. I also had the opportunity to interview and get interviewed. I also worked as a Technical Assistant and I had a go as a Social Media manager. It was not the first time I went through something like this, so I knew how I had to manage my time there and how to keep myself constantly busy all the time.

 

Online Webinars & Talks

During our media lessons, we have been invited to attend a couple of online video conferences hosted by University of Sunderland and Northern Film of Media. The event was called “The Films of Ridley Scott”, the host was Lord David Puttnam had the Director and Movie Producer as a guest for the show. Ridley Scott had a talk about his youth and how he got into movies, they also had a watch party about how the UK looked like when young Ridley Scott was around and was a student.

Ridley showed that he has been able to become one biggest name in movie history by being a young student living in South Shields from going to Hollywood and work movies like Alien or Blade Runner.

The event has been done on video call remotely, because of the pandemic, so for some aspects was easier for everyone to be able to watch it and understand what was going on, on the other side, Ridley Scott was not there in person to explain in detail the presentation.

 

After that we have also been invited to a talk from the BBC studios. The talk was a discussion about the availability of different jobs in the media sector. When it comes to the media sector, an employee will have to give it all his got to when applying for a job, we have learned that there is a big variety of jobs available. We have also been explained that a Curriculum Vitae is crucial since an employer will be able to understand skills and experiences by that. Employers also want to know in advance in which sector I am looking a position in. The BBC website also has a contact scheme where we can apply for jobs and study in detail al the positions that the BBC staff is looking for.

That talk helped me understand what kind of position role, I am personally looking for, because we learned about the information on how every member off the staff helps the great chain of workers in the BBC studios and we acknowledged what happens on a daily basis in every specific sector.