Megan Haining, a fashion design graduate who gained experience in marketing through the fashion industry, now digital marketing executive at Intelligens Consulting explains how she become a marketing executive in an award-winning telecoms consultancy, some of the challenges of working from home and in familiarising herself with an entirely new industry sector.
I first heard about the digital marketing role at Intelligens Consulting through my works coach who introduced me to many of the Kickstart (1) opportunities being offered. What attracted me to the role was the opportunity to broaden my experience and skills within another industry, having solely worked amongst fashion this would be a great experience to widen my knowledge of a different sector and hopefully bring something new to the role. Another great feature within this position that interested me was the training offered through Kickstart as well as the mentoring, this felt like a great occasion to dive out of my comfort zone as I had that extra support system.
I am also having to adjust to remote working. Working from home has its positives and negatives but mainly is something you must get used to. I find it helpful to create a separate environment for work so I can break up my space by creating separate areas in my home dedicated to work to improve my concentration and thinking. Having a positive clear place to work really helps to get into the working frame of mind. However, it can get distracting being at home and harder to get work done but changing up and mixing tasks as well as place of work can be helpful. It is just a learning curve of seeing what works for me best. It was harder at first although I feel I now have the motivation and productive workplace to spend my time.
The main thing I struggled with was getting familiar with telecoms – an industry sector which is completely different to anything I have done before. 5G, for example, was not something that came to me lightly and I still have some work to be done. I will continue to try get more of a grasp on telecoms by reading and researching to develop a better understanding of the company and its sector as my time here goes on and in turn this will help me greatly in creating the perfect digital space to relay Intelligens consulting’s great work. 5G is something I knew very little about before my role here and am continuing to try learning and take in as much as I can. Making the jump from fashion to 5G is not easy but it is an interesting one with much to learn and develop upon. It will be interesting to see what I can bring from my time in fashion to the telecom’s world.
Working with Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) as part of their Kickstart scheme has been great as it has given me an opportunity to step out of my comfort zone. They have provided a support system that I can rely on as well as providing great training. For example, I have signed up to courses where I will learn more about digital marketing. This will help me to develop Intelligens Consulting’s digital presence. In addition, the courses will build upon my own existing knowledge which I can take forward into my future career.
It really is a great chance to take a leap in a slightly different direction and still have that strong backing behind me to help me along the way. I look forward to seeing how the Kickstart scheme helps me progress through these next 6 months with Intelligens Consulting. __________________________________________________________________________ (1) The Kickstart scheme provides employers with funding to create job placements for 16-24 year olds on Universal Credit
Megan Haining LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/megan-haining