Work Experience at Jack & Grace

When my school first announced that they were allocating us a whole week to do work experience, I had no idea what I would do. To help us choose, we were given a list with various sectors that offered work experience in my city: primary schools and cafés; dentists and hospitals; admin and accounting firms.

But there didn’t seem to be anything for me that fitted.

I really wanted to do something linked to English – my favourite subject – but I soon realised I didn’t actually know what careers used those skills I was interested in, apart from the obvious such as becoming an author or an English teacher.

I discovered that it is difficult to find meaningful work experience that is related to something you are interested in, whilst being under 18. I would have been completely lost (and probably would’ve ended up spending a random week in a primary school classroom) if I hadn’t found Jack & Grace.

They made sure my time doing work experience was great from start to finish, with a variety of tasks given to me and plenty of flexibility. I appreciated that I was always asked for feedback and for what I wanted to gain from my experience.

I was quite nervous before starting as I didn’t know what to expect, but Abi made me feel very welcome and gave me lots of helpful insights into the work that a comms company does.

I’ve gotten a much better idea of the possibilities that are out there and the kind of job I could one day do. I’ve loved the opportunity to be a bit independent and have a go at different diverse and interesting tasks. Whether it was experimenting with Canva to create content for socials, reading pitches, picking out marketing quotes, learning about brand identity or looking at news coverage, I was learning something new and practical. I definitely hadn’t known how much work goes on behind the scenes of the media we eventually see!

I also enjoyed the flexible hours which meant I could take the day at my own pace. At the same time, it allowed me to delve into the array of topics I came across and find out more. This ranged from current affairs, to the World Happiness Summit, to what it means to be a B-Corp.

Finding out about Jack & Grace’s core values and aspirations has been inspiring and really set the bar for what I hope to expect from future jobs.

I would highly recommend to other young people to try out work experience, especially somewhere as lovely as Jack&Grace. It’s always worth asking for opportunities to have a peek into the working world, as you never know what doors it could open up! I certainly now have many more ideas for a future career and a far better understanding of the PR sector, so this has been a really beneficial experience.

I had a great time and thank you so much Jack & Grace for hosting me!