On the 16th of June, I was welcomed by the wonderful and vibrant team at Creative clique for a week’s worth of work experience. Being an English Literature and Creative Writing student at the University of Surrey, there is a wide variety of career paths to choose from and I did not have a clue what I wanted to do! So, when I heard about Creative Clique, I knew it was the kind of company I would enjoy being a part of because of the close-knit team and their creative services. 

From the outset the team was welcoming and friendly. Their wide variety of skills and backgrounds meant that I got to gain a bit of experience in many different roles like content creation, social media, copywriting, proofreading and I was even brought along to some client meetings. 

My first day, as I settled into the office, I was given some research to help out members of the team, searching for local influencers and proofreading some of the websites they designed. It was an excellent way to introduce me to the different services that Creative Clique provides and allowed me to get to know some of their major clients. 

Once I had settled into the office and met the rest of the team, Jo and the social media team invited me to join them on a content creation trip to Skylark Country Club and Golf Course. I spent a few hours shadowing Lauren and Marie as we shot photo and video content of the spa and some of the food and drink available at Skylark. I even got to be in some of the content! 

While I shadowed the content creation team, I also learnt what performs the best on social media as well as how to film and direct the most effective content. It was very educational to see the interactions between Creative Clique and their clients to see how to build strong and professional relationships. 

I found the copywriting fun, especially for such interesting initiatives like Spark Community Space, an inspirational Portsmouth Charity, and local Portsmouth restaurants and even solicitors! 

Writing blog posts was one of my favourite jobs to do. On my fourth day at Creative Clique I got the opportunity to go to one of their clients S-FABS, a steel fabricators company in Selsey. While we were there I got to interview their Managing Director, Tony, to learn about the business’ history so that I could write a blog post on where it all began. We were very fortunate that the previous Director, Tony’s dad Brian, had spent a lot of time organising old photographs and documents that covered their long history. I was also given the opportunity to interview a team member who is a volunteer for the RNLI and was included in BBC 2’s latest series of Saving Lives at Sea. Later I got to write both of these blog posts which was a great way for me to apply my creative writing skills professionally. 

My time at Creative Clique was invaluable and helped me gain some much needed experience but also taught me a lot like how to conduct an engaging interview and key questions to ask. I now have a much better understanding of some of the job roles available to me as a soon-to-be graduate so that I can make an informed decision when the time comes. The different roles I got to explore has also allowed me to find skills that I need to work on like not being afraid to ask for help, especially at Creative Clique where the team is friendly and brilliant at collaboration.

It was a true honour to be trusted by the team at Creative Clique to use my creative writing muscles on real projects. Thank you to the whole team for being welcoming and a general delight to be around and thank you to Jo for guiding me through the week (even though she was very busy) and for giving me this amazing opportunity.