All of those years of study have resulted in successful graduation – that’s a fantastic success for springboarding your future career!
Or is it? Despite the many years you might have dedicated to your studies, what many prospective employers are looking for is actual experience, as one of our alumni Chirag Patel, now a successful Freelance Production and Content Manager shares:
“My degrees are the last thing on my CV. No one cares about my degrees or what I’ve done in my past, it’s what I’ve done in the last 6 months, my experience.”
Find out more about the difference our Postgraduate course has made to Chirag’s career
So where does that leave you? Facing a prolonged slog in entry-level positions as a way of gaining experience? Facing short term, even lower paid internships, in the hope of starting a graduate career? Competing with other graduates for those career roles you’ve been dreaming about – but losing out every time to those who do have experience?
Sounds familiar? Well the good news is, at Event Academy we’ve spent many years working with graduates, bridging that skills and experience gap with intensive courses which will not only help you become work-ready in a short time but will also offer CIM accreditation and industry experience to help you get short-listed rather than side-lined when it comes to starting a career.
Despite career fairs at university and plenty of online careers advice, many graduates don’t have a clear idea what they want to do once they’ve graduated – although many of them are clear that they want a career and need to start earning!
The trouble is, it’s sometimes hard to know what to move on to because you don’t know what’s out there – something that’s true of many professional roles.
Take Julie Kubbinga, alumni from our Postgraduate Live course. Julie came to Event Academy with a degree in hotel management, wanting to find out more about event management roles. After successful completion of her course, Julie’s now working in experiential marketing – a role which she didn’t even know existed, let alone knew how to do, before working with us.
And this is what our postgraduate courses set out to do: 3 months of study and another 3 months of work placement help you to build a solid professional skillset which can open doors to all kinds of roles in the event industry.
Whatever the subject of your degree, graduating can leave you feeling full of knowledge and excitement for the next step. Unfortunately, it can also leave you feeling unprepared when it comes to putting everything you know into practice in a paid role!
Event Academy Postgraduate courses offer you the chance to top up your previous learning with professional knowledge, practice, and experience. Whether you follow the Postgraduate Live course here in London with us or through our online portal and global learning team, the course is designed to help build your practical and professional experience.
This is exactly what happened to graduate Molly Hodges, who felt unprepared for professional roles (and was rejected by prospective employers she applied to). Although she’d already spent three years studying fashion and marketing, Molly’s degree had given her almost no practical experience.
So, to develop her professional skills, gain some experience in putting it all into practice, and learn what’s involved in ‘best practice’ Molly signed up for postgraduate study with Event Academy. Within five months of starting the course, Molly had gained not only event management skills but also leadership and pitching skills. With work-ready confidence and a glowing professional portfolio, Molly was immediately snapped up for a paid role by the company she was assigned to for the 3-month work placement at the end of the course.
Learn more about how our postgraduate course has helped Molly achieve professional success
The good news is that degree level study relating to many subjects and industries can directly transfer across, and be a real bonus, to a career in events. For instance, degrees in fashion, technology, art and design, marketing, business, and finance are all relevant, as are many more.
The even better news is that sometimes training in event management after studying for your degree can help you realise the different options for using your existing skills and qualifications.
This was the case for Event Academy alumni Ciara Glynn. As a fashion graduate, Ciara found her attempts to get her career started frustrated by the lack of opportunities within the fashion industry. So, Ciara decided to complement her fashion industry knowledge by studying event management through our Postgraduate course, to gain the professional skills to organise fashion shows and events.
However, after the course content and placement exposed her to many more roles and options – including making the most of her impressive levels of creativity and organisational skills – Ciara’s now stepped into a career as a Lead Creative, with everything she’s ever learned contributing to her highly professional tool-kit for success!
The trouble with graduating is that you often then don’t want to spend more time studying before you start earning. Although we particularly recommend our Live Postgraduate course as being the ideal way to gain experience in events and event delivery – particularly as it includes event managing with some of the huge venues and brands in London – it’s also possible to take part wherever you are in the world and with the flexibility of times that suit you, with our Online Postgraduate course.
Alternatively, if you’re not sure you can commit to the six months full-time study for our Postgraduate course, our Live Diploma course offers part-time study two evenings a week, which might be easier to fit around your commitments. For maximum flexibility, it’s also possible to study the Diploma online with us too.
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