Posted on : 2022-07-22 03:03:18
Article : Good evening, Friday Management TASK 200-Despite studying ‘A’ levels in Business Management, a marketer convincingly felt that he would never have made it into marketing without an apprenticeship.
It is a story of an “A” level Business studies and Media studies job seeker as marketer career, after a period of job trials and waiting, he convinced that he would never have made it into marketing without an apprenticeship. Nationwide’s Taylor Kellond urges brands to embrace different ways to attract young talent. He further says that he hit a jackpot, reflecting on how studying for a marketing apprenticeship helped kickstart his career. Now as a marketing assistant in the social team at Nationwide, Kellond joined the building society in 2019 as an apprentice with a passion for content creation. He grew up as a teenager making vlogs on YouTube and social media content, quickly developing a flair for video editing.
Despite studying A Levels in Business Studies and Media Studies, Kellond recalls barely any mention of marketing, while social media was seen as a distracting pastime rather than a legitimate career. “Business Studies was primarily numbers based, working out the profits and losses in a business and how to set it up, which looking at it now is completely wrong to how you should launch these days. A very old-school way”. “Apprenticeships were rarely discussed and always in the context of becoming an electrician or plumber. When studying for his A Levels, Kellond remembers being “bombarded” with discussions about going to university, something he decided wasn’t for him.
Aside from being much happier with hands-on learning, he didn’t agree with the hefty cost associated with being a student. He recalls a friend who studied marketing at university and finished his course with £18,000 in debt struggling to find a job. “Now he’s moved on from marketing, he doesn’t do it at all. It goes to show if you take the uni route make sure it’s something you’re going to pursue in the future, he expresses “I haven’t done marketing at uni, but it seems like they teach you stuff that is completely different to what you do in a hands-on role”.
He finished his A Levels in 2016, but it wasn’t until a year later that Kellond realised a marketing career could be a possibility. His brother was working in a marketing-related role and explained how Kellond’s passion for social media and content creation could be steered into a career. “It opened that opportunity to him and he started looking for what was available, because marketing has such a wide spectrum of roles you can go into. It was quite daunting,”
Then as a retail assistant at Sainsbury’s, Kellond applied for an admin position at WH Smith to see if he could get closer to marketing by working at head office. He began asking around about marketing roles and was invited to help on the odd leaflet. However, Kellond had something more creative in mind. “The roles he was looking at required two years’ experience minimum. It’s one of those things of “how do you get experience without experience”? He had a portfolio from YouTube and used that as his experience, but with every job he applied for, if he got an interview, they’d ask him if he had a CIM qualification, [a Chartered Institute of Marketing qualification]” he recalls.
By chance he saw an advert on job site Indeed, posted by The Marketing Academy Foundation, looking for an apprentice to join Nationwide’s social media team – no experience needed. Instantly, Kellond knew he had landed on a great opportunity. He says he feels lucky to have come across the job ad, pointing out that apprenticeships should be easier for young people to find. “he didn’t have a network at the time,” Kellond explains. “You don’t know about all these external agencies if you’re not involved in them.” This turned his career dream and he has started climbing the ladder.
In the present situation I wish that all the business schools around the world should focus on value job-oriented education as a Uni degree should not be limited to adding alphabets behind the name. Post your observed or known similar career experiences and the solutions the job finders found. Our continuation of this story would be posted on out Good morning, Monday Management Solution post on 25th August 2022.
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