{"id":319,"date":"2020-01-31T11:41:34","date_gmt":"2020-01-31T11:41:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamgraduate\/?p=319"},"modified":"2020-01-31T11:41:34","modified_gmt":"2020-01-31T11:41:34","slug":"four-questions-with-liam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamgraduate\/2020\/01\/31\/four-questions-with-liam\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Questions with…Liam"},"content":{"rendered":"

Name:<\/strong> Liam Taft<\/p>\n

Degree details: <\/strong>BA English<\/p>\n

Job title:<\/strong> Web Content Coordinator<\/p>\n

Describe your current role:\"\"<\/strong><\/p>\n

I currently work in the marketing team at Twinkl<\/a>, which is one of the UK\u2019s largest educational publishers. My primary role is to run the Twinkl Education Blog, but I also coordinate other online content and write social media posts.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>What is the biggest mistake you have made since graduating and what have you learnt from it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The biggest mistake I made when starting my job was not asking for help. I don’t come from a marketing background, so I didn\u2019t know all of the terminology at first. I felt embarrassed about not understanding some concepts, which held me back.<\/p>\n

Since then, I\u2019ve learned that it\u2019s okay to ask someone to explain something, even if it might seem obvious. If your team is supportive, they\u2019ll want everyone to be on the same page. Even better, it\u2019ll make you seem inquisitive and curious to learn more!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>What is the best piece of advice you have been given?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Something that my team always remind me is that it\u2019s okay to fail. When you start your first job out of university, you can feel a lot of pressure to \u2018prove\u2019 yourself. However, especially when you\u2019re taking the first steps of your career, you\u2019re not going to get everything right the first time.<\/p>\n

Marketing in particular involves a lot of experimenting with new techniques to drive growth. Sometimes, these experiments work well, but other times they fail. Knowing that it\u2019s okay to get things wrong means you can take the pressure off yourself.<\/p>\n

What have you learned since graduating that could be helpful\u00a0<\/strong>to other graduates like you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

One thing I\u2019ve learned is that you shouldn\u2019t be afraid to try something new. For as long as I can remember I wanted to be a journalist. At university, I completed multiple placements at magazines and newspapers and wrote freelance commissions too. However, I found it difficult to find any jobs outside of London that didn\u2019t require an expensive postgraduate qualification.<\/p>\n

After doing some more research and attending the \u2018Insight into..\u2019 talks with the Careers Network, I found that I could apply my skills to marketing. I still get to write articles every day, so I get to use the skills I developed in journalism. Sometimes your career doesn\u2019t start in the way you\u2019d expect, but embrace the challenge and see where it takes you.<\/p>\n

Can you recommend us something?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you work in marketing, it\u2019s important to stay up to date with the latest trends, especially if your job involves SEO like mine.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also a great idea to learn more about your discipline, no matter your skill level. This means you can keep challenging, refining, and improving your skills.<\/p>\n

In particular, I recommend the Jeff Bullas<\/a> blog for marketing tips.<\/p>\n

The Sticky Notes newsletter<\/a> is also a great resource for learning more about copywriting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Name: Liam Taft Degree details: BA English Job title: Web Content Coordinator Describe your current role: I currently work in the marketing team at Twinkl, which is one of the UK\u2019s largest educational publishers. My primary role is to run the Twinkl Education Blog, but I also coordinate other online content and write social media … Continue reading “Four Questions with…Liam”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":285,"featured_media":320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-4-questions-with","category-cal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamgraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamgraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamgraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamgraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/285"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamgraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=319"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamgraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":322,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamgraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/319\/revisions\/322"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamgraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamgraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamgraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/birminghamgraduate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}