If you told me 6 years ago, just as I was about to start my Sports Therapy undergraduate, that I would now be working for one of Manchester’s most established full-service digital agencies, I’d be rethinking all the debt I was about to rack up.
Nevertheless, I wouldn’t change anything about the past 6 years as I wouldn’t have found myself in the position I am in today; a newly promoted apprentice, starting her career as a Digital Marketing Executive.
So, how have I found myself here? And why did I make such a drastic career change?
University Years: The Biggest Decision of my life…
My journey started at 18, fresh out of college with 3 A Levels under my belt, deciding my career path. I decided to either go down a sports-related route or an artistic route. Having not considered the full range of careers an artistic path could lead me towards, I decided on sports, picking a Sports Therapy BSc at Edge Hill University. My first year was a breeze, using it as an opportunity to make friends, get involved in the football team, and gain independence living away from home.
My second year, however, is when my university downfall began. It was 2020 and COVID had hit. This meant my very physical, in-person degree had gone fully online.
The long and short of this meant that, by the time it came to graduating, I had very limited hands-on experience practising physiotherapy, and although I had a qualification, I did not feel qualified.
So, what to do? I decided to spend a year living in Liverpool, working in bars and pizza restaurants to get me by whilst I considered my next move. Mid 2022 I moved to Manchester, looking to start afresh in a new, unknown city.
After spending 6 months working part-time jobs, and not feeling fulfilled in my life, I decided it was time to make a change and consider where my true passions lay.
The Juice Academy
I had always had preconceptions about what an apprenticeship was. In my head, you ran around making the teas and coffees, mainly sat and observed, possibly being given the jobs no one else wanted to do. However, after researching creative careers, and seeing ‘digital marketing’ crop up wherever I looked, an apprenticeship seemed the only way to avoid going back to university to gain the necessary qualifications. So, I did my research and quickly ended up finding The Juice Academy.
They were exactly what I was looking for; they gained a deep understanding of who I was, what I was looking for and my career aspirations. I found myself gravitating towards them, and very quickly they put me in front of one of their most valued positions, a Content Creator Level 3 apprenticeship at Pixel Kicks.
I was drawn to Pixel Kicks from the start, having crept across their social media, website and job advert, I found myself really wanting this opportunity. I did extra research in preparation for my interview, completing online courses on digital marketing to give me a head start in what was completely foreign territory.
Luckily, my interview went as well as I could have imagined, and within 2 hours I was offered the job.
Learning and Earning
So began my apprenticeship journey. I was working 4 full days a week, with Tuesdays dedicated to my apprenticeship where I would be either at the academy, learning various components of content creation from industry experts, or doing independent learning, completing courses and projects that would advance me in my qualification.
Straight away at Pixel Kicks, I was thrown into agency life, being given my own clients to work on, in which I was completing social media, SEO and PPC work on a monthly basis. My understanding of my apprenticeship (Content Creation) was that I would be mostly involved in creative projects, such as social media creation. In addition to this, I was shown the ropes of SEO, completing site audits, writing blogs and keyword research, along with PPC; getting involved in Google Ads and paid social media. I was learning from industry experts, people who had worked within digital marketing for over a decade, and applying what I was learning during my apprenticeship to my daily work.
I quickly began to gain confidence, receiving feedback and recognition for the work I was doing, and in response, getting involved with more complex clients and working more autonomously on independent projects.
I was loving life at Pixel Kicks, finally feeling fulfilled and appreciated in a job I was actually enjoying. With the opportunity to work both on and off the job, I found my progression to exceed my expectations and felt myself becoming a fully-fledged part of the digital marketing team and Pixel Kicks.
Before long, I was a part of the company, creating some of our most engaged with social media posts, working on photography shoots for large clients, and becoming the account manager for Pixel Kicks themselves, meaning I took charge of our own in-house marketing. I was getting more involved in client meetings, taking charge of client calls and even attending in-person meetings. I finally started to feel confident in my abilities.
One Chapter Ends, Another Starts
Although my apprenticeship course was 15 months long, due to be complete in August after my final exam, my first-year appraisal in May found me landing a full-time Digital Marketing Executive job, solidifying my future at Pixel Kicks. From here, things only seemed to get better.
Each year at Pixel Kicks, we have a company event called ‘The Masterplan’, a day where the whole company comes together in a day-long event full of company updates, guest speakers and awards. The day was already a huge milestone for me, having been selected to present slides on our photography processes. Public speaking has always been my biggest struggle, so getting up in front of the company and delivering a presentation without a meltdown was a great success in my eyes. However, the day was topped off even further after learning I had won the ‘People’s Choice Award’, in which my colleagues voted for me in recognition of the work I had completed since I joined the previous year. This is one of the greatest achievements I’ve ever had.
Finally, one more tiny brag… Three days later I took my final apprenticeship exam, something I had been working towards for 15 months. Within hours I found out I had passed with a distinction. I had finally done it. 15 months prior, I started with absolutely no experience in digital marketing, and now I have completed my apprenticeship, working full-time in a career I love, for a company that has given me every opportunity to succeed. I couldn’t be more grateful and proud of myself, and now, I continue to learn every day, hoping to grow in my career and be an example of how starting anew can lead you to a successful future.
Read more: Molly Barton nominated for Outstanding Apprentice of the Year
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