Blog post 1

Work-based learning

Tamara White

My placement is at the radio station Juice 1038. I have always felt like I would want to work on a radio station as I have good communication skills and energy, therefore I started looking for radio stations to work on during the summer for my placement. Although I have not started my placement my initial experiences of gaining my placement went well.

I had applied for Juice 1038 via their website which required me to fill out a form regarding what type of placement I wanted. This application was like a job application which I am used to filling out as I have applied for and worked many jobs and asked me for my skill set and what would make the placement good for me and my future career.

During my years outside of university and living alone I have gone to many interviews and job opportunities in which I need to apply with a CV and attend an interview, therefore I felt like I was prepared for the process.

After successfully completing the online application, the same day I received a phone call from the manager of the radio station as he had already received my application and we arranged an interview for the next day. Initially I felt like this was very quick process as I had just put in my online application and called me shortly afterwards. I was looking forward to the placement as already it seemed to be, moving very fast and seemed to be organised.

We organised and interview for the following day via video chat. I feel like I was prepared for this interview as I had been to many before and knew what type of questions interviewers usually ask.
The interview seemed to be more informal, as he asked a lot of general questions about what I was interested in and what I do. I knew that for this type of job I would need to have good reading and comprehension skills, and although I am good at talking, I was to make sure throughout this interview that everything that I was saying was interesting and was clear and concise. I knew that these skills would be key for becoming a presenter on a radio station and wanted to show this in the interview. After answering all his questions, he told me that he felt I was a perfect for for the job and that I was well spoken which was very much needed for presenter’s.

From then we had organised for me to come in the following weeks.

After the interview I found that I had a lot of trouble with the manager around meeting deadlines and forming a schedule. For example, when I needed to provide my placement forms, although I was consistently contacting him regarding the fact that the forms need to be in ASAP, he failed to get back to me until the last day as he “forgot”. I have also had a lot of trouble with trying to organise set days to come into the radio station as the manager doesn’t reply to messages consistently or keep me in the loop. I have found that it can take weeks for him to reply as after joining Juice1038 for my placement I was first brought into the office after two weeks. Although it was meant to be sooner, the manager failed to contact me until the day before he wanted me to come in. Shortly after this he informed me over text that he had ended up in hospital after I had texted him to find out if I was going to be coming in the following week. After I failed to hear from him for 4 weeks. Upon texting him he told me he would keep me in the loop but failed to update me about whether he was better. This lead me, after two weeks, to text him again but without a response. I could tell that he had read my messages from our correspondence over WhatsApp, but had

chosen not to reply until two more weeks after that, to say he was back at work. From then he asked which day would suit me for a meeting and after my reply I have been waiting days to see his response.

I feel like I have met a lot of issues with Juice1038 as the manager seems to be very disorganised and inconsistent with his time management, as he would leave my messages for weeks without reply. Because of this I have not been able to go to my placement for the whole of semester one which puts pressure on me trying to meet my 100 compulsory hours next semester.

I feel like working with Juice 1038 has been very unprofessional as the manager, who hired me for the placement seems to be very disorganised and some time management issues, as he doesn’t rely to messages for a very long time and organises this very last minute. I feel like he also made a lot of false promises when he had explained to me what the placement was about and how often I would be in, which we discussed on one of our first meetings. Since, I haven’t worked any hours at Juice1038 and although he has recovered and back at work, I still haven’t received a message in reply from him in regards starting work again. To fix this I feel like I would either start looking for a new placement where the company seemed more organised or wait for him to become more consistent in bringing me in due to my time restraints of working 100 placement hours by the end of second semester.