Flourish Insight - Careers Development Month

Have you ever thought about a career in PR, marketing or brand communications and wondered how to get started? Like many careers, there’s no one ‘right way’ in.

November is Careers Development Month which has been actively promoted by the National Career Development Association since 1967. It provides a time for everyone, no matter what stage, to take a look at their future careers. Students, just starting out, may start doing research, going to career fairs, speaking to experts to get an understanding of the type of industry they would like to be involved in. At the other end, employees may look to progress further in their career, such as getting a promotion or changing profession entirely.

The Flourish team comprises of people from a variety of backgrounds, and we’ve handpicked three of our most recent joiners to share their career development stories.

Ellie’s Career Development

As a child, my career ambitions were for the most part centred around my hobbies. First off, I wanted to be a ballerina, then it was a professional show jumper and finally a star on the stage at the West-End (I’m pretty sure seeing Wicked had a fair amount to do with that one…). However, as I grew up, these dreams shifted, and I started to consider where my strengths lay. Having developed a love for modern languages during both my GCSEs and A Levels, I decided to do a degree in French and Spanish at Durham University. The degree allowed me to study a wide range of subjects and meant I got to spend my third year living and working abroad.

While living in Barcelona, I got a job working for a PR and Communications firm having already completed an internship with Flourish the year before. I loved working with clients on exciting campaigns and further developing my abilities writing press releases and leading on accounts. Once I returned to the UK, I finished my degree and started working at Flourish full-time! As a communicative person, I love building relationships with clients and getting stuck into the news agenda. I am excited to keep building on my skills and see where my career in PR takes me.

Rhys’ Career Development – A Different Route

Currently, I work as a Digital Marketing Account Executive at Flourish PR, but this wasn’t always the plan. When I was a lot younger, I had many outlandish ambitions for my career, from being a premier league footballer for Chelsea to being a racing driver and even a presenter on Top Gear. However, I quickly had to reel myself in considering I had nowhere near the required technical ability to do any of these roles.

There was a long period in my life through secondary school where I had no idea what it was that I wanted to do, it was only whilst I was at Sixth Form that I made it a priority to figure this out. My three favourite subjects at school were business, geography and computing (which were the three subjects I did for my A-Levels) and I wanted to find something that combined these three subjects. The standout candidate for this was digital marketing as you need to be business-minded in many aspects of the role as you are the focal point for lead generation in the business; you also need to have a good geographical knowledge in understanding cultures of different countries and regions in the UK so that you can maximise the performance of campaigns; finally, the “digital” in digital marketing directly correlates to computing. I started my digital marketing career freelancing at the age of 16/17, making it my first ever job and the one I am still doing today.

The reason for the transition from freelancing to apprenticeship was basically because I knew I had so much more to learn about digital marketing, and an apprenticeship was the most viable option for me. I’ve often been asked why I chose an apprenticeship over university but I have never been an advocate of university, you can find out why here: https://www.flourishpr.co.uk/apprenticeship-or-university. Now I have completed my apprenticeship, I am onto my next phase of my career which involves further deepening my knowledge, understanding and experience of my chosen path at Flourish.

Hannah’s Career Development – Early Stages

This stage of my career consists of studying History at university and working for Flourish as a PR and Social Media Assistant, part-time. When I was younger, I wanted to be a family lawyer, however, when I realised how much reading I had to do, I diverted from the idea. For a long time, I was unsure of what I wanted to do, I just knew I loved History, so after A-Levels, I decided to study it further university.

In the summer of 2020, I was lucky enough to be a summer intern at Flourish, it was the beginning of my experience in PR. However, my summer experience at Flourish didn’t end completely; I was invited to come back and work part-time while I underwent my studies at university. I am thoroughly enjoying learning about the world of PR and social media too. PR allows for me to be a chatterbox, super organised and experience different writing skills which I love. Although for me, it is only the beginning of my career and I am still in education, from being given the opportunity to work at Flourish, I now have a clear direction of where I am heading.