Outstanding work experience helped Sarah Morgan get a job at Elle Decoration

Making a good impression during work experience can pay dividends for journalism students, as Brighton Journalist Works graduate Sarah Morgan discovered after her placement at Esquire magazine.

When a sub-editor vacancy came up at Esquire’s sister publication Elle Decoration, members of the production team at Esquire encouraged Sarah to apply for the post.

Sarah said:

“I was recommended to apply by the subs at Esquire and was told at Elle Decoration that I did the best in the subbing test (out of candidates who were more experienced than me), so the Production Journalism course and my work placement clearly gave me the skills I needed.

“I think I was quite a quick worker and always asked for things to do, which I did to show my enthusiasm but it seemed to act as a reminder that I was getting through things quickly.

“I read the pages I was given through very thoroughly and would then look at the paragraph to see if I needed to move any words around to even up the alignment/get rid of ‘I’s on the end of lines.

“I was recommended for the job in the first week but assume I did well in the second week, too. I felt much more comfortable going in and picking up things to work on.

“To be honest it was very lucky that I was there when a vacancy was open.

“I would advise anyone on work experience to absorb as much of the feedback and edits to their work as possible, because the reason I got the top mark in the subbing test at Elle decoration (which got me the job) was that I had worked on pages the week before and watched how the other subs moved copy around and cut it.

“In terms of interviews, researching the publication is really important – if it’s a magazine look up the rate card as that has information on the circulation, competitors and readers.

“I wanted to thank Brighton Journalist Works for setting up the work experience placements – I think my recommendation from Esquire was the reason I got through to the first round of interviews.”

Top tips onhow to stand out on work experience:

1. Listen to feedback from mentors.
2. Show you are enthusiastic about the work.
3. Make yourself useful.

Sarah isn’t the first BJW student to land a job after impressing senior editors while on work experience placement.

Scarlett Wrench learned the lingo and worked hard to land a job at Men’s Health magazine.

In her blog post My work experience got me a job – here’s how Scarlett gives seven points of advice on how to succeed on a work experience placement.