For years, Antenna members have been growing their businesses and experimenting with new initiatives by recruiting students and graduates from Confetti Institute of Creative Technologies to support them on new projects.
The students come from a variety of different courses including Graphic and Digital Design, Content Creation and Event Production to mention but a few, and have brought a fresh perspective to many businesses, some becoming an integral part of their workforce.
Antenna members have been tapping into this pool of new talent and giving students much needed and valuable experience. Lucy Greaves, Confetti Work Placement Manager, explains:
“We’ve worked with many Antenna members and tenants to facilitate work opportunities for Confetti students; for businesses taking up this opportunity, it’s helped them to unlock new ideas by bringing in a fresh perspective. It’s a fantastic opportunity for students too, boosting their career prospects and developing essential employability skills. It’s our job to match the right student with the right business, so that they both gain a meaningful and valuable experience
Placements can vary in length, from short micro-placements of 30 hours, to longer – term placements. Students can attend for one day a week over a period of weeks or a series of months – depending on the needs of the business, and can be focused around a specific project or series of tasks.”
Recently, first year BA (Hons) Content Creation students took on a live project working alongside Antenna tenant, STENCIL, to deliver a social media takeover for the release of STENCIL’s third edition of Pitch Magazine.
Jacky Gurr, Course Leader for BA (Hons) Content Creation said:
“It’s been amazing for the students to get first-hand experience working on a live project with STENCIL. Being given the responsibility of taking over Pitch Magazine’s Instagram account for an entire week, puts what they’ve learnt on the course into action. The reels the student’s created have become some of the top performers on Pitch Magazine’s Instagram account to date.”
Kamara was one of the first year Content Creation students working with STENCIL she said:
“Working with Pitch, I created assets for their social media page and was given free rein to post directly to their socials. I really enjoyed having to think of ideas to suit the branding and audience of the magazine, and I would love to do more with them in the future!”
STENCIL’s founder and Managing Director Andy Afford (pictured top) has a longstanding relationship with Confetti, and provides numerous work placement opportunities for Graphic and Digital Design students throughout the year. He values the benefit students bring to his business, saying:
“To say that the Content Creation students are only in their first year is astonishing. I’ve been blown away by the progress they have made in just a few months. The skills they have developed, the newfound confidence they have discovered within themselves – they and their tutors should be immensely proud.
They have brought a freshness and new perspective to creating content for Pitch Magazine’s Instagram account – something that without them I don’t know if we would have discovered for ourselves. We’ve had the pleasure of learning from them, as much as I hope they have learnt from us.
It’s all been made possible by the help and support of Lucy Greaves, Confetti’s Work Placement Manager, she has supported us every step of the way.”
It’s not just STENCIL making the most of links with Confetti, Antenna tenant, NUEL has also seen the benefit new talent can bring by recruiting a student as their Broadcast Manager, and it doesn’t stop there, as Managing Director David Jackson explains:
“We’re already seeing more students applying from Confetti as it becomes clearer to them the breadth of work experience opportunities there are, but I think that there’s more that can be done in terms of us better educating students on what we’re looking for to help them take that first run. We’re getting a lot of support from Confetti with this and so I’m really optimistic for the coming season that we’ll see this continue to improve.”
Can you offer a student or graduate work opportunity?
Join other Antenna members and tenants enjoying the positive impact a student placement or graduate internship can bring to your business.
If you have a project in mind, speak to Robert Hoare Confetti’s Head of Employability, email [email protected] to start the conversation.
