In September 2019, I started my first job out of university and began my Advertising & Media Exec Apprenticeship at Hunterlodge. Kickstarting my career with this Apprenticeship has exponentially fast-tracked both my understanding of advertising and my ability to provide good quality service to clients. Despite the challenges, mainly adjusting to working from home after only 6 months in the office, it was an exciting and informative introduction to the industry.
Throughout the year, I accumulated 374 hours of learning, starting with the Commercial, Foundation, LegRegs & Digital Performance Certificates. Within my first few months of work I already had 6 MIPA stars meaning – enough to get MIPA accredited. Hunterlodge has proportionally more accredited MIPA’s than any other UK agency – the IPA’s new badge of professionalism earned through critical knowledge, skills, and expertise. Through the apprenticeship, I was taken along to days such as TV Training at ThinkBox, a studio tour at RadioWorks, Inside News Brands at The Times and Audience Insights at Google. Getting to see how all the different sectors of the industry worked was incredibly energising and it continues to inform the way I engage with suppliers now. I was also able to organise a What is Advertising careers presentation at the local Grammar school, where I introduced the world of advertising to students interested in joining the industry.

The learning continued when working from home, made up of seminars on time management, stress and resilience and industry changes; weekly effectiveness meetings on Teams where I learnt more about what the rest of the company were up to; and education energizers organised by our media planners.
I used this learning along with all of the campaigns I had been working on to build my portfolio. This consisted of client appraisals, examples of project management and organisation techniques and work on proposals, quotes, insights – all of which worked to demonstrate how I can help clients achieve their business objectives and ensure measurements of effectiveness.
My final assessment included an online interview and presentation of one of the client campaigns I’d worked on and how I played a vital role in it’s lifecycle. I ended up achieving a Distinction grade, which was a fantastic bonus to all of the knowledge and experience I gained from the apprenticeship.
For more information on our apprenticeship scheme, please contact kim.mclellan@hunterlodge.co.uk