Placement experience: Promotions Assistant for the University of Portsmouth

BA (Hons) Film Production student, Cristian-Ionut Necula, is currently doing a placement within our Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries as a Promotions Assistant. He’s been in touch with us to talk about his experience so far…

Tell us about your role…

I am currently on placement working for our University, as the Promotions Assistant in the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries. My role involves a variety of duties, but to summarise, my job includes managing the Faculty’s social media presence on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as writing and publishing new articles for the Creative Space blog. These blogposts are then included in our fortnightly newsletter which is distributed to all the staff and students in CCI, and external industry contacts.

In addition, I help with event organising, and these are quite varied: we’ve had two inaugural lectures, an art installation as part of Journeys Festival International, a series of guest lectures and an awards ceremony from the GTC. Occasionally, I have the chance to create content (photos and videos) for these, which has definitely helped me get a better understanding of brand identity and sticking to a client’s tone of voice.

Click here to view some of the video content Cristian has created in this role.

How do you feel your placement has benefited you?

I feel like I’ve developed my confidence and communication skills by interacting with academics and University partners. I also learned how to manage my time more efficiently, working in the routine of a 9-to-5 job which requires me to be very organised. On a more technical side, this job has further enhanced my computer literacy and I have gained experience with various tools for social media marketing and design creation. As I also mentioned above, shooting content for the University and its partners taught me a lot about tailoring my creative style to their respective brands, and this actually applies to writing blog articles, too.

What’s been the highlight so far?

I think the highlight of my experience until now was creating content which helped promote my course, BA (Hons) Film Production. I had the chance to write about some of my coursemates’ achievements (e.g. winning a Motor Film Award, working for Bentley), and creating an exhibition of BAFP graduates’ work, which is currently on display in the Portsmouth Guildhall. The latter was an interesting opportunity to develop curation skills, which I wasn’t expecting to be part of the job, and it was very fulfiling to see this come to life from the concept stage to printing and then mounting the posters and photos. This also provided me with the chance to interact more with the other departments in the Faculty and take advantage of Eldon’s workshops, especially the photography and printing facilities, which I haven’t really used before as part of my course.

Any exciting projects coming up?

In the coming months I will begin helping with the organisation of the Faculty’s annual Graduate Show which celebrates our 3rd-year students’ work, as the culmination of their degrees. This will be a very complex event with a considerable number of guests and which will involve a great deal of promotional materials which I will have to create for our social media campaigns. The Portsmouth Comic-Con is coming up soon, as well, and it’s something I will get involved in with the organising because the University of Portsmouth is a partner for the event, too.

What would you say to a potential placement student?

For me, the possibility of doing a placement was something I had in mind since before coming to university. I knew I wanted to gain professional experience before graduating, so taking out a sandwich/placement year was really a no-brainer. The great thing about this job is that it equips me with a variety of skills which are generally in-demand, and not specific to a single industry. Social media marketing is on the rise, and the fact that I have some freedom to bring my own touch with photography and filmmaking is great.

Whether you are going to aim for this job when I finish my placement, or an entirely different one, I highly encourage you to do so. You will make connections, gain valuable work experience, and you might even discover a new passion or skill!