One of my main reason for coming to university was to expand my skills so that I would have more employability in the job market. I have been actively looking at the job market now in regards to my future employment and what I want to do for a while, I am currently employed as a freelancer but would like to be contracted by one of the big radio companies (BBC, Bauer, Global or wireless) when I’m finished with university, My work experience has led me to sit in and learn on shows such as pick of the pops and doing research for recording of documentaries for Wise Buddha such as when Kenny met the Fab Four. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08586h9

I learnt a lot about research on these shows such as what archive clips work best what information would be best to past on to the presenter. I also learnt a lot about presenting as I sat in with Paul Gambaccini and saw the differences between prerecorded material and live radio. Like I said, I want to be a presenter on a music station, but you don’t tend to start just as a presenter.

Looking into the job market I’ve seen on former students LinkedIn pages such as Kaylee Golding and speaking to people who are involved in hiring people in the industry (David Spencer) that often the first roles you do are as assistant broadcaster/producer or researcher, with the current experience I have I believe this ties in well with my individual audio project.
I wanted to cover something related to sport, as mentioned when I graduate I want to work on music radio but I thought as I already have covered music radio in 2 other modules as well having a show on smoke radio and had previous work experience on music shows I thought it would be a good idea to try and tackle a non-music related subject to show a broad range of interests and skills (such as a sound art piece or documentary making) that would hopefully give me a better chance in the job market as and also hopefully learn some new skills and ideas. All the research I have done into the job market shows that employs want people who are adaptable and can do multiple different roles. https://beonair.com/tips-for-breaking-into-the-radio-broadcasting-industry, When we applied for our mock job interviews, I noticed that in the broadcast assistant role I applied for the company were very keen for candidates to be able to work on different software and produce different types of content, so I decided making a documentary would help to showcase these skills.

Alongside this, I’ve seen many people on LinkedIn that are freelance documentary makers in both film and audio that have built their careers making similar content to this to what I was plaining to do. Having worked as a freelancer for over 4 years now I was I’m keen to see what career options appear down this path.