During the summer holidays, alumna Nadine Kawash (class of 2012) was able to provide work experience for Upper Sixth pupil Jodie McKinley. Alumni work closely with the Careers Department to provide such opportunities for our pupils, and on this occasion Jodie spent one week at the global PR and digital marketing agency FleischmanHillard. Nadine, who is Senior Account Manager at the agency, left FHS in 2012 and completed a BA in Politics and International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London. She has worked at FleischmanHillard for 4 years now. Said Nadine, “Jodie was an absolute superstar, she had a really positive attitude and put her all into every task she was given. She demonstrated really strong writing skills from drafting beautiful newsletters for Colief, to having a really good stab at a press release for Singapore Airlines – which is not easy. She also made notes on every task she worked on, which was really nice to see as it showed she was genuinely interested and invested in everything she was working on.”

Jodie’s account of her week’s work experience is below – and if there are alumni who would be happy to provide work experience for our Sixth Form pupils, please do get in touch!

“FleischmanHillard gave me the opportunity to use the various skills I am learning in my A level and EPQ courses in terms of writing, communicating, thinking creatively and teamwork in a real life business environment. Nadine assigned me to her colleague Kelly, and I worked in their team on clients as diverse as Singapore Airlines, Bose, GoPro, Colief, Foreo and Sunsilk. For Singapore Airlines I drafted a press release on their Inflight Skills initiative and produced their monthly coverage report, for Bose I produced a competitor review which included analysing a Sony product, and for GoPro I generated engaging Instagram captions. I also worked on a really interesting Youth & Culture LGBTQIA campaign. Despite having really busy schedules, the team also made the effort to invite me to brainstorms on new business briefs which showed me how the creative process can be applied to solving genuine business problems. Without this opportunity at FHS I would never have discovered how much I enjoyed the variety and energy of this type of work environment and I am now genuinely considering it as a future career after university.”

Jodie McKinley, UVI.