Digital Marketing Work Experience Placements
Work experience is a key part of growing and adapting to the real world after finishing school, college or sixth form. We’ve provided tips on: how to find suitable marketing work experience, what sort of experience you can expect to gain and how to get the most out of your work placement.
What is the purpose of work experience?
Work experience involves finding a place of work and voluntarily working there for a short time in the hope of gaining valuable skills, experience, and an idea of what type of career path you would like to go down.
It is a requirement in most schools and is normally completed while studying for your GCSEs, often in Year 10. Many colleges and sixth forms push students to do more work experience in Year 12 as it further progresses experience and working skills. It also looks great on university or apprenticeship applications and CVs further down the line.
Work experience can prove to be a very important and valuable point in your life as it is a great opportunity to demonstrate skills needed for working life, such as commitment, motivation and enthusiasm. Key skills like these are looked for by any workplace so work experience is useful for providing evidence of them.
What does a work experience placement involve?
You may not be very certain about what sort of career path you are going to try and go down. Work experience can give you an insight into the working world and help you to explore your interests.
You will get the opportunity to try out different tasks, roles, techniques and strategies. You will also be able to ‘shadow’ experienced workers – watching them work to understand what their job is like and what is required to be successful at it. Gaining this sort of experience will help you get a clearer view about what sort of career you are striving for and what sort of role may suit you in the near future.
How do I find marketing work experience opportunities?
Work experience can be hard to find due to the amount of competition when applying and the limited number of workplaces that are willing to take on students. Not all companies are able to host work placements and some may be too busy, especially during summer months when more staff tend to take holidays.
Marketing jobs tend to be split between ‘in-house’ roles where people work as part of a marketing team within a company, and agency roles where they work for a company that provides marketing services to other businesses. In-house can give you experience of how larger companies operate and the opportunity to see areas other than marketing, while agency experience will allow you to see how agencies work with different types of companies. Even large companies that have their own marketing departments will often use the specialist skills agencies offer, so getting experience in either one is useful.
One option for finding marketing work experience is to ask those close to you, such as teachers, family and friends, if they know anywhere suitable. They may also be able to let you gain experience with them at their own place of work. This can be a beneficial way of finding a work placement as you will already be familiar with at least one member of staff, although sometimes it is good to step out of your comfort zone and build new connections.
If you are looking to broaden your horizons and go somewhere unfamiliar, then you should find out about companies near you that work in an industry you are interested in.
Once you have found a few potential workplaces, you need to find a way to contact them and enquire about work experience applications. Contact details should be stated on a company’s website – either on a contact or about page – and will most likely be either via phone or email. You can also explore other sections of their website to check for evidence of them offering previous marketing work placements.
How will I find work experience suited for me?
The best way to find suitable work experience is by simply looking into what type of tasks you will be doing and what experience you will be gaining. You can conduct in-depth research on the company online and find out what industry they operate in, what their expectations are, etc. You can also ask questions of the companies directly, either via email or on a phone call.
Even better still, if there are interviews or inductions before the work experience placement, you can gather a much stronger opinion and verdict on whether the place is right for you. In person you can ask the employees questions about what it is like and what the demands for you would be. You will be able to gather a first impression on the employees at the workplace and you will most likely be given a rundown on the expectations of the company, including what sort of tasks you will be set.
You should also take into account the location of the workplace as you will need to find a consistent way of getting there on time every day. It may be a longer journey than your usual one to school or college, so look into public transport options or check whether you can get a lift from a family member or friend.
How do I stand out when applying for work experience?
Similar to applying for actual jobs, there can be a lot of competition when looking for a suitable work experience placement, which is why you must make sure you stand out. This can be done by simply showing pure enthusiasm and proving to companies that you are very keen to have the opportunity to do your work experience with them.
Make sure any emails or applications you send through are easy to read and precise about what it is you are looking to get out of the work experience. Companies can receive a lot of emails and applications about work experience in digital marketing, which could mean your application gets overlooked or won’t be remembered unless it is clear, detailed and stays on topic.
Another way of standing out is by developing some knowledge about the company, asking insightful questions and overall being engaged during any interview process. This will help to show your interest in what the company does and you’ll be able to ask more specific questions about what sorts of tasks and skills will be learned during your work experience. This all helps to give companies the impression that you have an enthusiastic and positive mindset.
You can also demonstrate this by doing simple things like responding to the company promptly and arriving at any job interviews early. Being punctual shows that you are taking the opportunity seriously and are enthusiastic about ensuring you get the absolute most out of the experience.
How do I get the most out of my work experience?
The main way to get the most out of your work placement is to be enthusiastic and committed to every task you get set, no matter how big or small. Committing to every task will not only leave a good impression on those at the workplace, but it will also be the best way for you to gain an understanding of the industry and the most experience of the job to help figure out if it’s right for you.
You should also try to find opportunities to use your own initiative and go above and beyond what is being asked of you. This will lead to the employees at your work experience placement being more impressed and could lead to them giving you a strong and positive reference for any jobs, apprenticeships or university applications in the future.
Asking questions helps you to make the most of your marketing work experience as you can expand your knowledge about the work and industry. This also further shows that you have a great mindset and enthusiasm, which gives employers more reasons to speak positively of you if someone was to ask.
Why do your marketing work experience with Digital Defined?
Digital Defined is the perfect place to do your work experience if you have an interest in marketing or are looking to dive into the world of digital marketing. Digital Defined allows people on work experience to be independent and take on tasks to test themselves within the industry of marketing. This is incredibly beneficial as it allows you to quickly and independently build up valuable skills such as: discovering new techniques for technology and online, organisational skills and communication skills. These types of skills are great to learn and master at a young age as they can be taken with you for the rest of your life and will be valuable assets that any employer, no matter the job, will look for.
If you already do have a liking for digital marketing and have some familiarity with how it works, then Digital Defined provides you with the perfect opportunity to gain some early hands-on experience as well as helping you to expand your knowledge on marketing. Both of these will be majorly beneficial for your future career and will look great on your CV for marketing companies.
Every day whilst on work experience with Digital Defined you are likely to get set a new or different task to complete. This not only stops the experience from becoming repetitive but also means you can test your abilities at plenty of different sectors of marketing, which will help you to gain new practical knowledge and skills, as well as finding which areas and roles you are most suited to.
The colleagues who help assist you whilst on your marketing work placement are also a massive benefit and reason for choosing to do work experience at Digital Defined. They are highly skilled at their job roles so you can gain great insights by asking them questions and simply just watching how they operate. This helps to give inexperienced young people a positive idea about how to be successful within the industry of digital marketing. They are also always willing to help you and answer any potential questions you may have whilst on your work experience, which is very important. It means you can develop and improve your skills and knowledge as they pass on their knowledge by giving you advice and tips.
– By Spike Crockett
Digital Defined:
Spike is currently studying at a local sixth form and joined Digital Defined for a week of digital marketing work experience in Summer 2024. His application got our attention when he emailed us with the subject line: Adoption opportunity. We thought his ‘adoption’ advert and accompanying email demonstrated just the type of creative mindset that would benefit from some marketing work experience.
Spike got in touch with us several months before he needed to do his work experience placement, which was ideal as it ensured the week was available with us, as well as giving us plenty of time to prepare.
We aimed to give Spike a broad experience so he could get a flavour of what’s involved in the day-to-day world of digital marketing. While with us, Spike contributed to research and content preparation for several of our clients, providing him with an idea of how varied our work and our clients can be. We think the experience we gave him was useful and hopefully it will help spur on his enthusiasm for a future career within digital marketing.
