Life at FindAUniversity: My First 6 Months in the Team

I’m currently the Student Marketing & Partnerships Manager at FindAUniversity, a role I have been doing for almost six months. I’m responsible for planning, delivering and evaluating student marketing campaigns to promote the FindAMasters and FindAPhD brands to prospective postgraduate students. One of the role’s key aims is to grow the size of our audiences for both subscription services, such as newsletter and MyAccount sign-ups, and events like Postgrad LIVE and virtual webinars.

Before joining FindAUniversity, I worked in postgraduate recruitment marketing for a Welsh university. Although I loved working in postgraduate marketing (and still do!), I had been working for the same university for almost ten years and was ready for a change of scenery and fresh challenges. The offer of voluntary redundancy from the University made a difficult decision to leave much easier.

I saw the job advertisement on LinkedIn and was immediately interested. I had worked with FindAUniversity in a client capacity and attended marketing conferences previously so I knew it was going to be a great place to work.

Onboarding and first steps

The interview process was such a refreshing and uplifting process, and very different to previous interviews I’ve had. After almost 10 years working in the same place, my interview skills were a tad rusty, but I was immediately made to feel comfortable. It felt like I was having an informal chat with work colleagues about postgraduate student marketing rather than being assessed on my knowledge and experience, and made me feel great to meet people who were just as passionate about PG as I was. I did a happy dance around the kitchen when I got the phone call saying the job was mine!

Even before I officially started, I was invited to the Christmas party to meet the team and everyone I met made me feel so welcome. When I started the following January, I had a bit of a head start in terms of my knowledge of the postgraduate sector, but there was still a lot to learn! It was a little overwhelming to start, but I had a great and thorough induction from my wonderful manager, getting stuck into tasks and meeting colleagues who were, and still are, so approachable and willing to help.

As a mum to two young children, I submitted a flexible working request to work around school runs almost as soon as I started. This was approved really quickly, and has made juggling mum life with working life so much easier – I really feel like I have a great work/life balance now! I was concerned about the adjustment to 100% remote working, but I needn’t have worried. There’s a real effort to ensure that all meetings can be accessed remotely, and my team is great at organising informal catch-ups, including a Friday quiz which ends the working week on a high point!

Getting into it

In these last six months, I have been involved with creating and launching new marketing campaigns, refreshing and modernising our student tone of voice, trialling different marketing platforms and promoting our Postgrad LIVE events. There’s been a lot more creative freedom to try different marketing platforms and approaches, bringing my own previous experience to this role. What I love about FindAUniversity is that it really feels like there’s a lack of hierarchy - everyone from Senior Leadership Team down is so approachable and all ideas are listened to and valued.