The placement student commencing her marketing journey with The Prince's Trust
BSc (Hons) English Language and Literature student Bethany Grice-Hanson has discovered her passion for marketing at The Prince’s Trust.
After an unexpected start to her placement journey, Bethany was able to secure her role as a senior relationship and operations volunteer, supporting the digital marketing executive for central England, at The Prince’s Trust.
Unsure of the career path she wanted to take, Bethany chose Aston University due to the impressive option of a placement experience, a worthwhile element of her course that allowed her to gain valuable experience. Through the support of Aston University’s placements team, Bethany’s eyes were opened to a career in marketing, a revelation that has ignited her passion for the industry.
She said: “My placement at The Prince’s Trust has been an incredible opportunity and I would not change a thing.”
About The Prince's Trust
The Prince’s Trust, a youth charity established by HRH Prince of Wales in 1976, was created to improve the lives of disadvantaged young people in the UK. Supporting young people aged 11-30, The Prince’s Trust works with delivery partners across the UK to offer hundreds of free courses, grants and mentoring opportunities to inspire young people and start a career.
As of September 2020, The Prince’s Trust helped 1 million young people through their various programmes, including Team and Get Started. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, young people have suffered most from unemployment, meaning that The Prince’s Trust was needed now more than ever.
About the role
Since April 2021, Bethany has supported a digital marketing executive with the promotion of programmes in central England, including the Midlands and East of England regions, through social media marketing. Within her role, Bethany was responsible for supporting with a range of digital marketing tasks, from creation of promotional material and graphic design elements, to organic social copywriting, scheduling and set up. Bethany also assisted with The Trust’s transition to Eventbrite as a sign-up method for young people, and even helped to create a colour-coded design that has now been adopted by the national team.
Despite being a student volunteer, Bethany has been afforded a significant amount of responsibility. Not only was she responsible for her own projects, including creating a reserve of soft content resources, but she was also responsible for scheduling ads using Facebook Ads Manager, giving her responsibility over the advertising budget. Bethany was also given control of the organic social media planner as well as being responsible for the entire promotion process with minimal direction from her manager.
She said: “I have been given amazing opportunities to develop my creative skills and am very grateful to my manager for offering me a level of responsibility I have never experienced before.”
Time management and organisation skills were essential in Bethany’s role to deal with many programme promotions simultaneously as well as ensuring a high quality of work within tight deadlines. The role also required good problem solving and communication skills to ensure that all the programmes are represented correctly and the delivery partners approved of the designs. Executives who have worked with Bethany have remarked upon the efficiency of her work, the professional nature and thoroughness of her designs, and her excellent communication to help deal with any issues they had.
When asked for her reflection upon Bethany’s time at The Prince’s Trust, Bethany’s manager Lucy commented: "A great standard of work can always be relied on to be produced by Beth, despite the large workload, which is a testament to her time management and work ethic.
"She takes feedback and constructive criticism well and can be trusted to perform a range of tasks with a greater level of autonomy and accountability.
"She’s been an asset to our team!”
Undertaking a placement during the Covid-19 pandemic
During these unprecedented times there have been many challenges to overcome, especially within the workplace, that have affected placement opportunities and Bethany’s experience was no exception.
Despite these challenges, Bethany was fortunate enough to secure two placement opportunities, gaining the experience she desired and ability to develop as a professional. Reflecting upon her experience with The Prince’s Trust, Bethany felt that the pandemic did not negatively impact her placement as she was still able to have a great experience.
The benefits of a placement
Bethany’s placement offered her a great insight into working life, through the responsibilities she was given as well as being a part of a great team of student volunteers. Along with gaining valuable experience, Bethany was able to receive a great insight into social media marketing whilst developing her creative and digital skills. The Prince’s Trust ignited Bethany’s passion for marketing and enabled her to grow as a professional through the development of soft skills.
She said: “I learnt a lot from my time at The Prince’s Trust, developing a variety of skills and I was able to work on my personal development.
“I received a level of responsibility that I had never before and I am immensely grateful to my manager for allowing me to experience so much.”
Bethany praised The Prince’s Trust as an amazing company to work for, being supportive of personal development by offering opportunities to aid in developing her skills. In her role, Bethany was asked what skills she wanted to develop and could take control of her own experience so she could gain the most out of her role.
Bethany observed that The Prince’s Trust encourage professional growth, taking pride in the progress of their placement students.
She commented: “I had to make the hard decision to leave a placement but without it I never would have had such an incredible time at The Trust and gained the best experience to take forward in my future career.”
Advice for future placement students
So, would Bethany recommend a placement year to other Aston University students? “Absolutely,” said Bethany.
“I would definitely recommend a placement experience to other students as it allows you to gain relevant experience within a career you are interested in and develop as a professional.”
For Bethany, the most important aspect of choosing a placement is to apply for roles that you are interested in, even if the roles don’t exactly match your degree. Bethany recommends utilising the placements team to help you discover a variety of roles that are suited to you and your career interests.
She added:
Ensure you make the most of the opportunities provided to you and try to gain as much as possible from the experience.
This is the perfect opportunity for you to develop as a professional so make the most of it.
My experience has been more than I could have hoped for, allowing me to gain more skills and experience than I could have imagined. It is the best decision I made.”