As a budding marketing maven entering my final year of university, I was super excited when an opportunity came up for me to write digital content for Northumbria.
Writing is one of my strong points, and I’m all about work experience, so the chance to get paid to do what I love seemed like a dream come true. I jumped at the chance and became one of Northumbria’s first Digital Content Creators, or DCCs in short. Almost a year on, I have embarked on a new journey in my first graduate job, so I’m signing off with a post about my experience as a DCC and how it has boosted my career.
When I started university, I wasn’t like most students. I came here solely to learn, and didn’t want to distract myself with constant nights out and jobs with unsociable hours. For the most part, I managed to balance my finances, but a summer of interning in London drained my bank balance and I entered third year with a hefty overdraft. Searching Northumbria’s jobs board one night, I came across the DCC ad. Northumbria were looking for creative students with experience of blogging and social media to create exciting content for a brand new website they were launching. It sounded perfect!
I applied and was thrilled when I got the job. Being employed by the university, I didn’t have to worry about my studies being affected, as my employers knew better than anyone about the demands of university life. This went on to be one of the biggest plus points, as the flexible hours meant that I never had to rush a piece of work for the sake of getting it done on time when I had a busy week.
Working as a DCC was ridiculously fun from the moment I started. From group brainstorming sessions, to live tweeting Northumbria football matches, designing quizzes and nervously filming vlogs, every day was different and every task was a real test of my skills. Luckily, the team at Northumbria were always happy to help us improve our knowledge by teaching us how to use new tools and equipment.
In my opinion, a good DCC has to be enthusiastic, good with social media and full of creative ideas. DCCs are given a lot of freedom to create their own content, and the team at Northumbria love to innovate and explore new technology and concepts, so there’s room to be very forward-thinking. Whilst working at a Northumbria Open Day, I was shown a new photo app called Boomerang, which became a personal obsession of mine for about a week, resulting in a stream of silly social media posts.
What I loved most about the job, aside from everything I learnt, was how much I got to know the university and meet new people through my work. Northumbria is doing so many cool things that a lot of students know nothing about, so it was great to get in on the action, whilst interacting with students and staff that I would never have spoken to otherwise. The DCC team itself was made up of five complete strangers, and I’m glad to say now that we are all friends.
When I took the job as a DCC, I never expected it to have such a positive impact on my career. Without realising, I had gathered almost a year’s work experience in content writing and creation, had worked with a huge marketing team and had produced professional work that real people were reading, all whilst learning tonnes of new skills. In each of the interviews I had for graduate jobs, prospective employers were constantly asking about my work as a DCC, as it is so rare for a student to have that level of experience when they graduate. I now know that it was one of the reasons I was offered my graduate position at a marketing agency.
Reflecting on my time as a DCC, I can honestly say that I have thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the opportunity from start to finish and I would love to see a fantastic new team getting involved.
