Featured image: Anna Hewitt

Our new Graduate Stories series uncovers the diverse experiences of Manchester Met alumni, exploring the reality of life after graduation and highlighting career achievements. We shed light on the different paths graduates take, share relatable and honest advice, and provide practical tips for students who may feel uncertain about their next steps.

Anna Hewitt graduated from Manchester Met last year with a degree in English and Creative Writing. She is currently a Senior Account Executive at marketing and strategic communications agency, MC2. Anna is unapologetic and honest when it comes to speaking about the transition between university life and working a full time corporate job. We find out more about her career journey after university.

What does your daily work routine look like?

I work on the PR Content Teams, writing press releases, blogs, and creating social media content for clients. We have a whole range of clients; we work with a lot of corporate finance lawyers, from professional services like Deloitte to big tech companies like TalkTalk Business. I’ve just been put on the Manchester Originals account, which is a cricket team in Manchester – it is really exciting stuff! The North West is a big focus for us.

Tell us about the jump from student life to a 9 to 5 job.

Going from university life to working full time can be challenging. At uni, doing work, having deadlines and motivating yourself to work towards them can take up all hours of the night and the weekend, so there’s a bit of that flexibility. Working a 9 to 5 is great in some ways because you get your weekends back and you clock off at 5pm. But if it gets to 3pm and you’re having that slump, you have to keep going. It’s a skill, learning to concentrate like that.

What challenges have you faced working in PR?

Working with all types of people, it’s important to be sensitive to how things are interpreted and understood. For example, Molly Mae’s “we all have the same 24 hours in the day” comment negatively impacted her reputation and affected what people thought about her and her brand – I always use this as an example of bad PR.

How have you continued learning after graduating?

Marketing has similarities but it’s not just English-based, so for the first few months, they say you’re like a sponge, you’re just taking in so much information. I felt like I was shattered all the time because my brain was just constantly taking in different things. Even writing an email in a corporate way is so different to how you might email your tutors. I’m still learning every day. It’s much easier now though, and you get used to that style of learning.

How did your degree prepare you for the world of work?

It’s learning to have that scrutiny with your words and how certain sentences are loaded – with every single word that goes into a press release, you have to think about how you can give it life and energy. You also have to think about how different things are going to be interpreted if you’re writing comments for a client.

It’s having that critical thinking, being able to use research and write a blog about certain things and researching around it. It’s a language, writing essays and reading complex texts and theories and putting them into your own words.

Do you think it’s necessary for students to gain work experience while studying?

Employers are interested in work experience as well as the completion of a degree. Work experience is invaluable and will make the transitions between university and the working world easier. Just putting yourself out there for different opportunities is something they look for in the corporate world, they want you to put your hand up and say I want to do that.

When I was at uni I got involved a lot. I worked with aAh! Magazine for journalism-based opportunities, as journalism and PR are quite connected. I also had a Student Ambassador role. And Jobs4Students jobs are great too.