Below, Marina, an Editorial Assistant at Mediabrands provided insight into her time at Mediabrands.
What is your role and how long have you been at Mediabrands?
My role is an Editorial Assistant in the International content team of Stickyeyes.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?
I have a background in Journalism and Mass communication, spanning 5 years. After completing my undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Journalism and mass communication from India, I came to University of Leeds to pursue a second postgraduate degree in MA New Media.
In professional experience, I have held various roles in various industries. While I interned as a sportswriter, 2 event management executives and writing for lifestyle magazines, my previous professional experience introduced me to the world of digital media and online journalism. I worked as a Senior Executive Content Editor for an Indian based online news application, Jio News.
As my day-to-day workload, I worked on writing news articles, publishing breaking news alerts, and creating headlines for push notifications.
What inspired you to apply for this role/this company?
When I was researching the companies that I wanted to seek a job in, I found out that Stickyeyes/ Reprise was one of the most reputed organisations in the whole of Yorkshire as well as the UK. But what really inspired me to apply for a position at Stickyeyes was the culture of diversity it stands for. I also learnt about the varied renowned brands we work with like Adobe and Etihad Airways, and that excited me to work in the company.
Moreover, my job role as Editorial Assistant had the perfect mix of working on admin tasks, along with dealing with the content side of the business. This aligned with my career goals, as I was looking for an opportunity which would allow me to move to content creation and generation, from journalism.
What has been the single most important thing you learnt so far in your job?
Like I mentioned earlier, since I am looking to change my professional trajectory, I decided to delve into the world of digital media and learn more about it. As a result, I got to learn a lot about HTML coding.
What I like about my job is, though it is more of an admin-based role, it also allowed me to practice what I studied in the degree through CMS uploads for various accounts like Etihad Airways, Hertz and others. I got to experience first-hand account of how HTML coding shapes content online and to manage the CMS uploads.
What would a ‘normal’ day look like for someone in your role?
My day starts with returning content orders, completed by freelancers, to the Paid Marketing Communications (PMC) team. I would go on to collate all the content pieces ordered for PMC from the past week on an excel sheet and post it on the Content Costs folder. I will then move to process the invoices received from the freelancers, both Paper (BACS) and Worksome ones (third party portal through which we hire freelancers who live outside the UK or do not have a Tax reference code). I also work on completing CMS uploads for some clients, which is basically copy-pasting content into their portal and editing imagery and pushing the pages live.
What do you find most interesting with the sector/industry you’re in?
What I like about content generation and creation is it gives one opportunity to work with different industries and different clients, and that teaches so much about the way content shapes our world. In true sense, content writing gives one the chance to see flow and fluid content in its most basic and foremost form.
What is the company culture like?
I find Mediabrands’ culture to be that of a diverse, cooperative, functional organisation that goes above and beyond to make the employees feel accepted, involved, and assured. I also feel when it comes to delivering, we believe in quality over quantity. Mediabrands chooses its clients with full awareness and conscience and invests a lot of time and energy into making content that brings about an emotional connection with the audience.
How important is diversity to you and what is Mediabrands doing in this space at the moment?
Being a South Asian, working in a British company, being conscious about diversity is a big part of my personality and my reason to have chosen Stickyeyes/ Reprise to work. I see and appreciate all the efforts Mediabrands takes to create a thriving, diversified environment for its employees. All the OPEN Network events that encourage participation and conversation, helps a lot in the company being truly an international organisation.
I also feel it is important to mention how brilliant it is for Mediabrands to hire new talent from all over the world.
Finally, any tips for anyone who’d like to apply for a role at Mediabrands?
I think Mediabrands is an excellent organisation to work at. It not only gives one the opportunity to work with some of the biggest brands in the world but provides a whole lot of resources to learn, evolve and progress.
Being an international student, who was apprehensive about finding a job in a foreign country, I am so glad Mediabrands happened to be my first one because it taught me a lot about constant learning at work, working across teams and what a healthy, working ecosystem feels like.
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