A Week in the Life of Isla, Our Work Experience Student

Monday

On my first day, I was welcomed into the office with a tour. The office space is exciting, modern and different. With meeting rooms named after Google updates (Penguin, Panda, Hummingbird), standing desks, a pool table and so much more, it felt like a consciously curated space designed to create the most comfortable work environment possible.

My first department was Paid Media, shadowing Terry. Being able to apply target audiences to my own social media feeds was super intriguing and gave me insight into how intentional every single ad I see really is. After this, we were set off on our first task, which involved starting by analysing our own feeds, then moving on to curating five headlines paired with primary text to promote Sunsail’s Early Bird Event. This gave me a great opportunity to explore some creativity and navigate Meta’s software to physically create projections of what my ads would look like. I thoroughly enjoyed this task.

After a relaxing lunch, I moved on to SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) with Ella. She gave us a really interactive and applicable introduction to her field, before giving us the opportunity to choose a page from Sunsail and see what we could improve to boost the page’s organic standing. I chose the page about yacht charters around Italy—an area I’m highly interested in—and spent the afternoon tweaking layout, adding in keywords and testimonials, and making the page more interactive, while taking inspiration from successful competitors' websites. This was really enjoyable for me, combining my interests in writing and travel, and also allowing me to learn the layout of such documents.

After a busy day, I left the office with a smile on my face, a very successful first day!

Tuesday

On day two, I arrived super excited for the day ahead. I spent the morning with Ariane, working on the psychology behind marketing, specifically behavioural science. This department felt really relevant to my study of Psychology A Level and introduced me to a career path in psychology that I’d never really considered before.

Our task for the morning was to work with the ‘nudge cards’, each of which holds a different marketing strategy based on our understanding of human behaviour. We randomly selected five nudge cards and applied them to the client Roku, who design smart TVs and remotes. I used my time to create mock-ups of these potential website changes using Canva, which was a really creative and fun task. Usually, I wouldn’t describe myself as a creative person, so this pushed me outside of my comfort zone a bit, but I’m really glad I gave it a go, as I was proud of the final result. I can definitely see how applicable psychology is to the wider world now, which has broadened my horizons for both my own studies and potential career options.

We spent our afternoon with Ed, working with the data team. I was more nervous about this department as I’m not a big fan of maths, and I was worried it would all be very number-driven and statistical. I was relieved to find that he took a different spin on data and its role in marketing. Instead of just focusing on numbers, he taught us a way of thinking about data, exploring potential contributing factors using the acronym PESTLE (political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental), and attributing trends to seasonality and time of week.

This approach made all the data feel much more meaningful and deepened our analysis beyond just the obvious trends. Our afternoon task, breaking down and analysing the trends of different graphs, became super interesting when put into the context of real clients and real consumer choices. This afternoon (despite my initial concerns) turned out to be really insightful and hugely changed my perception of what I had thought was just a load of numbers.

Wednesday

Wednesday began with the internal marketing team. We got an overview of how this department functions within the company from Erin, and then we got started on our most hands-on task yet. We packed 30 brunch boxes for the ‘Brunch and Learn’ events put on by Reflect Digital every month. For this task, organisation was key, but it quickly became rhythmic, and once we set up our own mini production line, it became super manageable.

Next, we got to sit in on the monthly team brief. This showcased the successes of the business while setting achievable goals and aims for the upcoming month. The overwhelming positivity from this meeting highlighted how the team really takes care of each other and appreciates everyone’s contribution.

We finished off the morning by watching some episodes of the Behind the Future podcast and dividing them into subtopics. The podcast was really interesting and gave me a great opportunity to hear from people who have been successful in their marketing careers, so I was keen to take in some of their top tips.

The afternoon kicked off with a call from Ellen, who explained her role within the growth team. This was the department I felt I knew the least about going in, and Ellen was really great at explaining how she got into it and what she does on a day-to-day basis. The variety of this role intrigued me, and our task reflected this, with us being put on a research task that had come through just half an hour before our call! To me, this proved that every day is different in the growth department, and you have to be adaptable to juggle and organise tasks from clients.

This was another task really embracing the world of AI, with us relying on ChatGPT and Google AI Overview as our research tools to rank the client against competitors. It was really interesting to compare how the two AI sources could produce completely different results, having been given the exact same prompt and working from the same bank of information. This task developed my own understanding of AI, giving me practical skills I will carry forward in my work beyond this experience.

Once again, this task highlighted to me that Reflect Digital is a really modern company, working to embrace the possibilities that the future of technology offers. This was definitely my busiest day yet, but also one of the most interesting, as I really got to see the scope that jobs in digital marketing can have.

Thursday

Thursday started with an introduction to Hannah, who asked us to continue our work with the growth team. It was really fulfilling to see the task all the way through, and I felt really happy reviewing the final document to see all the progress we had made. I spent the rest of my morning evaluating my time here at Reflect Digital, celebrating all the tasks I had completed and thinking about what I enjoyed most. My personal highlight has to be the marketing team with Erin, getting to combine aspects of what I’d learnt the previous day in behavioural science with this department was really rewarding, and the more practical task really mixed it up!

I finished off my day writing up the rest of my blog, working on the final sections while trying to incorporate aspects of what I’d learnt from the SEO team to optimise this as a web page. Overall, it was a super successful week. Even though I’m still unsure what career I want to pursue in the future, I know this is a definite option. Having really enjoyed every single department I worked in, I’m really proud of all the work I have completed, and I feel like I’ve learnt so much in just four days! Huge thanks to Amy and the whole team for welcoming me into Reflect Digital. I think anyone would be lucky to complete a work experience placement here - I couldn’t recommend it more.

Key Takeaways 

During my work of work experience, I learned some important lessons about digital marketing, AI, and the skills that matter most. Here are the key insights I took away:

• In this industry, AI is not something to be feared; it can be incorporated into everyday tasks to improve existing work, but there will always be a need for human creativity.
• Experience is the most valuable asset you can gain. Most people I spoke to hadn’t started out with a marketing degree, so what made candidates stand out in job applications was good research, internships, work experience, and hard work. I’ve learnt the importance of seizing every opportunity possible.
• The most important skill is thinking outside the box and the ability to work collaboratively within teams to produce new and innovative ideas. It’s more than okay to be wrong or make mistakes, as long as you learn from them. To quote Ed, "I'd rather be wrong interestingly than right boringly.”
• Collaboration is key. Taking the time to talk through your ideas with a team not only helps you reflect on them, but also allows you to gain valuable input from peers around you.
• Enjoy every experience you get! My four days at Reflect Digital flew by, and I loved spending time in such a positive environment. I’m really glad I made the most of this opportunity and spoke to as many people as possible to truly soak up everything I could.

Again, thank you so much for this experience. Anyone who gets to work here is super lucky!