Last week, we were delighted to welcome Sophia Hadjipateras, a student at King Alfred School, for a one-week work placement at TLC. In this blog-post, Sophia tells us about her first experience of being in and contributing to the workplace. Sophia was a joy to have here in the office, and we wish her the best of luck with university applications, and with her future career.
Why did you want to complete a work experience placement here at TLC?
When I did some research on the company through their website, I realized that I had never heard about this kind of service before and wanted to learn more about it. I had never done any previous work experience and felt that TLC would be a great place to start, as it is a small but very interesting company. What attracted me the most was that it is essentially a company that helps people achieve their dreams and ambitions – and that made me even more excited to learn about how the company worked. I was very grateful and lucky to receive a placement here.
Tell me a little about some of the tasks you have done over your time here.
Over the course of only one week, I have learned so much about how a company works, from starting by having absolutely no knowledge on the subject at all! A lot of my tasks have been involved in the social media aspect of the company. I have written short Twitter and Facebook posts on news in the publishing world using Buffer, which was probably one of my favourite tasks to do. I also learned how to use a franking machine which was (although slightly confusing at first) was a valuable skill I’m glad I know for any future work placements. I also learned how to input entries on TLC’s central database, which again is a very useful skill I’m happy to have been taught by the TLC team.
What have you found most interesting, and why?
The thing that I found most interesting was learning about the marketing side of how the company works. It was nice to learn the different techniques and ways TLC put themselves out there. I could see that TLC was constantly trying to improve itself, and I saw this through getting to attend the #QualityWriting4All Campaign event. It was inspiring to see that the company was trying to extend their help to a more diverse audience.
Do you feel you have learned anything new (i.e., that you didn’t know before), or has there been anything that has been surprising, or unexpected?
Since this was my first experience working in a company, everything I have learnt has been new and unexpected. Learning about the different skills and jobs required to make a company run, specifically small businesses, has been so valuable. The competitiveness and difficulty writers face trying to publish their work has been a surprise to me though; the competition writers of today face is much higher than I previously thought. TLC helps writers through that gap between writing and publishing by giving talented writers the confidence to complete their work.
Has your stay in any way influenced how you think about the arts/publishing/writing/your own career path?
Before I completed my week of work experience here, I knew I wanted a career in the creative field – specifically English orientated. But I was unaware of the variety of different jobs in this area there was. I used to think there was really only journalism and being a writer, which seemed limiting. This week has opened my mind to the many different possibilities there are in this field, and it has encouraged me to look further into publishing and editing. It has also confirmed my passion for writing and reading. I have loved this week working with TLC and am very grateful for this opportunity.
