Impression Digital
About the employer
Impression are a multi-award winning digital marketing agency, with offices in Nottingham and London. They work with clients as diverse as Thornton’s, Telefonica, Experian and Robin Hood Energy to grow and engage their online audiences.
Two of our students, Teeru Sundaragiri and Ismael Akhtar recently completed their work placements at Impression’s Nottingham city centre site.
Teeru (aged 16) and Ismael (18) are both studying towards their Level 3 BTEC Extended Diploma in IT at our Maid Marian Way campus.
Chloe Fair, SEO Strategist at Impression set out the company’s approach towards their work experience program, saying
We are striving to bridge the marketing skills gap in the next generation. By offering students a week’s work experience at Impression, we are not only showing them the world of work in an agency but also giving them an introduction to digital marketing and the creative industries.
This is also in line with our aims of improving retention in Nottingham by giving students and teachers the opportunity to learn about what businesses and potential career paths are available in Nottingham.
We have a work experience programme which we have created due to having over ten work experience students over the past couple of years. The programme allows us to tailor the week to the particular student’s interests so we learn something new every time we have a student in.
Chloe Fair — SEO Strategist at Impression
Teeru and Ismael were both working on a couple of our current clients, helping us to come up with new content ideas and conducting keyword and competitor research to back up their campaigns. We also have a better understanding of which tasks are suitable for college students and can improve these for future students.”
One of the great incentives for employers to come on board as partners for work experience is the opportunity to give staff line management responsibilities, as Chloe details, “Additionally, by having the students in for a week we are able to give a mentoring opportunity to a member of the Impression team who may not have had experience doing this before. This is great for many reasons as it gives experience and responsibility to analysts and executives at Impression, but also is great for the work experience students tohave a peer mentor.”
With regards to the relationship established between the College and Impression, Chloe commented, “We have enjoyed working with Stephen to arrange the work experience week for Teeru and Ismael and are pleased that we now have a good, established relationship with Nottingham College. We are looking forward to inviting two more students into the office in October and hope to work with Nottingham College on our ‘Creative Industries Workshop’ too.”
Feedback on the students has been very strong, and encouraging for the future, “Teeru was confident enough to ask for help from her first day. She answered each question in depth and asked for feedback on the task in order to improve. Her understanding of digital terminology greatly increased over the week and she very nearly completed the Digital Garage qualification on her first try, which is something to be proud of. One area that Teeru was keen to improve upon was her teamwork skills. Ismael was a great partner for Teeru to work with, as they learnt from each other and offered suggestions to improve each other’s work. We were glad to see Teeru make the most of the experience and hope that she will continue to progress during the next stage of her education.”
“Ismael arrived early every day to work on his Digital Garage qualification before his daily tasks, showing his dedication to learn and improve. He almost completed the Digital Garage qualification on his first try and asked for further Google qualifications that he could complete over the summer. Over the duration of the week, his confidence grew as he began asking questions and suggesting extra tasks he could get on with. We were very impressed with both Ismael’s professional and personal development and hope that he carries these skills through to the next stage of his education.” Reflecting on the progress of the students over the duration of the placements, “By the end of the week, Ismael and Teeru both understood the different departments within the business and were completing tasks that our Analysts carry out every day. They came up with some great blog post ideas, conducted keyword research and identified Impression’s main competitors. They also completed Google’s Digital Garage and are going to do the final quiz over summer.”
Teeru was extremely positive and enthusiastic about her experience, as she explained, “The placement has definitely opened my eyes to a new path that I feel I can pursue and succeed at. I had a good time learning new things with some amazing people who were very helpful such as my guide Sophie, who really helped eased all of my doubts and answered all of my questions.”
“Working in partnership with my colleague Ismael was great and allowed me to highlight that I work well in a team. We have worked really well together over the course of the placement, sharing ideas and writing blogs together.”
“I had a great time learning all about the field of digital marketing, which was brand new to me at first. It was a challenge in some areas, such as when learning about PPC (pay per click). However, with the appropriate assistance and guidance I was able to feel confident in by the end of the week.”
“It was an amazing experience that I know is going to be very useful in the future.”
Assessing the overall success of the project, Chloe reflects, “We were very impressed with the standard of their work and their time management skills. They now have a basic understanding of SEO and PPC and we wish them all the best for the future!”