My journey to Pixel Kicks

Humble Beginnings

My first 3 months at Pixel kicks has been an absolute roller coaster ride. Till this day I still cannot believe that I work here, I can’t thank the owner Chris enough for believing in me and giving me the opportunity to be apart of this fantastic company. I can truly say I have got my dream job and to say that when I’m only 19 years old petrifies me.

As I searched the city streets looking for my place of work on my first day I was filled with terror, and butterflies roamed my stomach; bad thoughts were jumping to my head and I was constantly overthinking everything. As soon as I rang the bell for Pixel Kicks, I was extremely jittery waiting for my new boss to open the door, but as soon as he greeted me in, I felt comfortable and relaxed immediately.

The Pixel Kicks Family

When I first entered the office everybody who works there was so welcoming and friendly, there was so much positive energy you could feel there was a real togetherness amongst everyone with only 10 employers there, they all really made me feel like I was the newest member of the Pixel Kick’s family.

Ever since my first day they have been brilliant with me, made me feel so welcome and so easy to talk to, they’re always pushing me to ask questions if I am ever stuck or need help with any of the work I have been given. It just shows how amazing and thoughtful my colleagues are. I am surrounded by such positive people constantly every day. It is so refreshing, which makes me enjoy my job even more than I already do.

The Same Old Routine…

After finishing college, I was clueless as to what I wanted to do with my life like most young people do. Some of my friends went to university, others went straight into a full-time job or if they were lucky got an apprenticeship, me on the other hand I just didn’t know where to start. 

As soon as I left college and the summer had passed, that was when reality started to kick in.

The same old routine of getting up crack of dawn and dragging myself into education five days a week was no more, and the beginning of adulthood and the working world had begun for me. 

An advantage I knew I had was that I always wanted to go into the media industry after studying it in high school then college. Growing up I always loved making videos especially short films with my friends, so the experience I had with this combined with my knowledge of the media industry, I was hoping this would be putting my foot in the door – it was going to be the biggest challenge I had ever faced.

In the world we live in today, technology has advanced so much, everything is so media driven so with the passion I have towards the subject, starting a career in the media industry seemed the perfect idea.

 However, when I started to realise how difficult it is to be noticed by media companies  who are mainly looking for people with a lot of experience behind them, my confidence dropped and I immediately knew my chances were extremely slim of doing what I always wanted to do.

Since I was 16 years old, I worked in the hospitality industry where I learned the ins and outs of being a waiter. Though it was very difficult sometimes when we were busy on special days such as Mother’s Day and Christmas day, I still enjoyed it as you develop really good communication skills as you have to be constantly interacting with customers. 

Lucky for me I’ve always been very polite and I always have a smile on my face so I became very good at my job. Even though I was good and comfortable at being a waiter I wasn’t happy as I knew my dream and desire was to be working in media.

 

The Juice Academy

I’m very fortunate as earlier on in 2019 my best friend went to the Juice Academy and like me had an interest in the media world and when he managed to get an apprenticeship out of it. He recommended the place to me and as soon as he told me it was a no brainer, I had to try my luck and see what would happen.

The start of the day was all about introducing yourself to the 7 employers and really showing off who you are as a person, keeping up your personality all day was so tiring and draining as you were competing with other candidates in my position, so I really had to stand out from the rest whilst also being my true self. 

 

All set to work with the amazing apprentices at @TheJuiceAcademy this morning! pic.twitter.com/uODWm7lC09

— Ian Pettigrew (@KingfisherCoach) January 8, 2020

 

Speed Dating

The speed dating part of the day was the biggest challenge I thought during the day, as you only had 3 minutes to speak to each employer about their business and why you would be perfect to work for them, selling yourself was a lot harder than I initially thought but it was a great learning curve.

By the time it got to the end of the day all of us applicants were incredibly nervous as we all had to sit in this room, anxiously waiting for the employers to decide which candidate they wanted to join their company. 

 

Today we’re at @TheJuiceAcademy boot camp looking for a digital apprentice to join our team – best of luck to all the candidates. ? #TJABootcamp pic.twitter.com/arcN773KAH

— JW Lees (@JWLeesBrewery) November 14, 2019

When I gazed around the room everyone was on the edge of the seat, twiddling their thumbs, legs were twitching – a sense of defeat roamed the air which tasted like poison, infecting us all with false hope, it felt like we were all doomed for failure.

But as I heard my number get called up I have never felt so relieved in my life, I couldn’t control my emotions, I didn’t know how to think or what to feel all I knew was that I just landed an apprenticeship and now I was eager to see which employer had picked me. 

Welcome Cohort 26 ? Get to know our newest Cohort of social media savvy digital marketing apprentices ?
? https://t.co/rcwwFIVD7r#apprentices #digitalmarketing #apprentice pic.twitter.com/V5LKLA5r52

— The Juice Academy (@TheJuiceAcademy) December 9, 2019

Surprisingly, I was told by one of the women that two employers wanted and they were both my top choices, I was over the moon I couldn’t believe it. However, there was only one company I wanted to work for which caught my attention the most and that was Pixel kicks.

From his presentation at the start to the one on one chat I had with him, the way Chris spoke about Pixel kicks, you could see the amount of passion he had for his company. This immediately caught my attention as well as the work he and his team do on a daily basis.

 

3 Months on…

It has now been nearly 3 months since I started, and I can honestly say I couldn’t be happier working here. I love all the work I’m doing from writing blogs, editing videos, creating social media posts plus many more.

 My favourite task that I have done so far is easily the video and photo shoot i went on with my colleague Fred to Birmingham to meet one of our clients Isabella Fisher. 

Throughout the day we took loads of photos and videos both inside and outside of her workplace, we even managed to film testimonials with a few of Isabella’s clients. 

It was really interesting hearing all their stories about the problems they’ve had with hearing and how Isabella has given them the best possible solutions to make their hearing better.

After filming all the testimonials and taking plenty of pictures and videos around the working environment, we were extremely happy with the work we had done throughout the day and it couldn’t have gone any better.

It was so satisfying knowing that Chris had this much trust in me in my first few months of working with him and giving me a job like this to do. It makes me even more eager to carry on learning and I’m extremely excited as to what the future holds.