Unit 2CD Evaluation:

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Networking is the process within an industry of making connections and building relationships with
contacts. Connections with contacts in an industry can provide someone with advice, feedback and
career opportunities which can help someone in making informed career decisions. A person can
even use networking outside of advertised jobs to find unadvertised jobs, internships and
apprenticeships to get a footing in the position of a job someone is in.

The use of networking has become trivialised as part of the employment process in the present day.
To adapt to this, I have developed social media platforms as well as a developed website to make
myself more employable within and outside the media. Constructing a media-based profile on X
(formerly known as Twitter) has allowed me to become more active with the media landscape and
engage with contacts I can appropriately use for employment. On the other hand, the website I
made using Wordpress will allow me to show my skills I have developed throughout my years in
education, therefore, with the ability to refer employers to my website I can demonstrate my
capabilities for a specific job.

We’ve had a large variety of workshops in class, one of which being with Canon Ambassador Clive
Booth. With the array of workshops in my class, I can gather contacts of media producers, employees
& employers that I can use to get into certain sectors of the media. I learnt various photography skills
in this workshop as well, such as camerawork involving positioning, lighting by using reflectors and
learning where to place light emitters to achieve different outcomes, and most interestingly of all
how to story craft with the photographs and how heavily that can influence the desired outcome of a
photoshoot. These developed skills and understanding behind camera techniques has made me
become comfortable with photography, and by using contacts such as Clive I can get more involved in
the industry. We later had a meeting with Clive Booth as part of unit 27 to present our photographs
and gather feedback to take into account if we were to present still image content to clients in the
future. I picked up skills through attending this meeting, such as presentation and public speaking
skills which I can apply to future careers including this kind of skillset. On top of this, I also took
Clive’s advice into account by creating my photographs around a story. The majority of the stories I
made for the photographs were based around the current day media, which is relevant for the sector
I’m producing in. The presentation and workshops I’ve had with Clive has led me to be very
interested in the photography sector of the media, opening the idea of finding career paths based
around photography and the skills that I have picked up through the project. One of my photographs
I took for the project I received heavy inspiration from Clive’s photoshoot with Al Worden, an Apollo
15 command module pilot and story inspiration from “Juanjo Arques’s Ignite”.

Another workshop we’ve done was featuring Alex Canner presenting Derby University’s Journalism
course. Being at this workshop taught me skills that I can apply in other media sectors, however also
opened the window into journalism by being taught how to get into the industry, what you can
expect out of the industry regarding workload etc, increasing my employability in the sector. Canner
also touched on radio production, however only briefly. While this didn’t benefit me as much as the
Journalism workshop since I’d already submitted my radio production unit at this time, it was still
important to make sure I could learn new skills that I could apply in the radio sector if I were to work
or produce within that sector again. The Journalism workshop was extensive and allowed for me to
learn a wide variety of skills, as well as learn the difference between different types of Journalism
such as Sports, News, and other forms of Broadcast Journalism in the media industry.

Networking (Social Media)

On top of the workshops and contacts I’ve worked with in school, I have also set up multiple social
media accounts to promote and display my work through public sites such as X and YouTube. This
means that I have a higher chance of employability since if I were to be work within the media, or
work for a client, I can show them my work in a collective space to evaluate on whether my previous
work lives up to their expectations or not. Even with my posts being on social media I can expect
people to approach me through comments and direct messages to review my employability and
negotiate jobs, campaigns and other forms of work within the media.

As well as creating and posting on an account, I have also followed a variety of accounts subject to
the media, such as Clive Booth and Canon since I’m very interested in Photography. On Instagram I
follow an account with the handle ‘@graphic_cal’, who uses both photography skills combined with
the use of editing to programs such as photoshop to create images with geometric-like shapes and
lighting techniques to create great looking photographs that I’d like to take inspiration from if I were
to work with photography or photoshop in the future as a career or as a personal project. Following
accounts such as these displays my interest in certain media sectors which looks great for employers
looking to get potential employees into the industry.
I also follow Clive Booth and Canon on X to use as a contact to get into the industry as a career, or to
get inspiration for future projects. Connections such as Clive in the media can increase my
employability in this industry since I can show to employers the work that I have done with him, as
well as how I’ve taken in feedback from others to improve on weak points in my work, whether that
be camera issues, lighting issues or editing issues. This can show to employers that I have the skills to
improve an act on my work by consuming feedback from others, as well as displaying my skills to
work with others.

As well as producing both X and YouTube accounts to show my work, I also produced a LinkedIn
account to involve myself more with the industry in terms of looking for employers for job roles. On
the platform I’ve found job positions for radiography, photography, cinematography etc. which leaves
me with a lot of opportunities for career choices that I can experiment with.

CV & Website

I have also developed and produced a CV that I can use in and outside of the media to find and
inform employers on what my skills are, my previous work experiences and how I can apply myself to
the job role I’m applying for. This increases my employability since it gives the employer a good idea
of what I’m capable of doing within the position and any previous work environments I’ve been in. As
well as a general use CV, I’ve also searched through LinkedIn and created a CV for a specific job role,
developing my skills in CV creation and allowing me to evaluate on the skills I have learned
throughout all my products I’ve created in the media that apply to ideal job positions that I can apply
my skillset into.

Finally, I created a website to have all my course work, personal work and CV all in one place. I can
use my website to show my skills to employers visually, instead of written like in my CV. Showing my
work off visually will increase my employability as I can visually demonstrate the skills, I have
developed throughout my time producing work in the media, as well as showing my passion for the
industry through personal projects I have done outside of course work. Having my CV on the website
as well means that I can give employers the link to my website for them to view everything about
me, rather than just displaying my CV which has a lot of work and information missed out in
comparison to a hub that houses all the work I have done.
I’ve used my knowledge of networking to create a CV catered towards a job role found on LinkedIn.
Since I selected a media-based editorial job to structure my CV around, I had to highlight the skills I
have in media involving my camerawork, editing, pre-production etc. such as what I picked up during
the workshops I had with Clive, as well as both course work and personal projects that I’d completed.
Highlighting these major aspects of the job role will increase my employability in regard to this
specific job as I’m able to show my experience in the industry and what I’ve picked up along the way.

I chose to highlight my skills in editing software and projects where I have used editing software to
emphasise the experience that I have within the industry, with specifics such as addressing where
I’ve learned these skills, where I’ve applied them previously in my work and how they can help me
moving forward with job roles I pick up. On top of this, I have highlighted general skills such as public
speaking and presentability that I’ve learned to apply qualities still relevant to the job role outside of
what I’ve picked up through the media.

Adding onto this, I’ve shown the activities that I have done that are applicable to the job role, as well
as further displayed my experience with editing software by covering a short film I’ve created where I
worked through each stage of the creative process from pre- to post-production, as well as
developing campaign advertisements. Emphasising these specific areas of my work in my CV further
increases my employability into this specific job role as I’ve focused heavily on my editing skills and
where I’ve learned them, showing both the skills I’ve learned and the experience that I’ve had in the
field, make me a safer choice for an employee than if I hadn’t included these key factors.

In conclusion, my use of networking in the media has been very effective as I can confidently show
the skillset I have developed throughout both my coursework and personal projects I have conducted
in my own time, as well as creating social media platforms to similarly show my work and create
connections to people in the media industry I can then use to follow career paths I’ve set myself on.
Finally, the use of a website allowing me to store all the information about me into one place is very
reliable and increases my employability by a large margin, making it easy for employers and clients to
see my skills and how I can apply them to a job.