As an English student, you’d hope that university job fairs would be filled with journalists, freelance writers, publishing houses and more.
The reality, though, is that few exhibitors offer writing-related work.
The majority of job fair stalls are:
- Law companies looking for your soul
- Teaching charities wanting to challenge your patience
- Further study asking for you to take on more debt
- Conglomerates asking you fight against a million applicants for an internship
- Charities wanting you to volunteer.
My hyperbole aside, these are all valuable industries and worthy careers, but they aren’t necessarily what you’d consider the ‘go to’ for an English Studies graduate – a student who spent 3 years or more learning about writing, its meaning and its grammar.
Copywriting – the invisible profession?
Notice how I didn’t even mention copywriters at the beginning?
That’s because copywriting was unknown to me. I thought copywriting was just sales orientated; something a marketer might do within their job role.
But then I was put in touch with a copywriter for Vodafone, thanks to a friend from an internship. If it wasn’t for my friend I probably would not be where I am now – working as a full-time copywriter within a technology company, making excellent use of my degree.
My experience with Vodafone was the first time I’d seen that my degree, consisting of literary dissection and linguistic study, might actually translate into a job that required the very skills I was honing at university.
Why aren’t students told about opportunities in copywriting?
I wasn’t the only one wondering about my future. My fellow English students also had to figure out their next steps. Many of my friends volunteered for charities, fought for internships, continued their studies – or went into teaching. Only a handful are forging careers as wordsmiths.
It doesn’t make sense that the copywriting industry is invisible at the point when young, talented, educated and eager writers are looking for work. Copywriting becomes an unexplored avenue for many students.
But the world will always need copy and so it will always need writers… Where better to find them than university?