Below Junior UX Analyst, Amy, outlines her experience working at Reprise Digital, a digital performance agency brand of Mediabrands.
What is your role and how long have you been at Mediabrands?
I’m a Junior UX Analyst at Reprise Digital, a digital performance agency branch of Mediabrands. I’ve been in the role for just over three months now and I’ve recently passed my probation.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?
I grew up in the Lake District and when I was at school, I had no idea what I wanted to do as a career. I enjoyed studying creative advertising and marketing modules as part of my Business Studies A-Level, hence I decided to do a Marketing related degree at University. After successfully being accepted to study BA Management with Marketing at the University of Leeds, I moved to Leeds and began life as a fresher.
Alongside completing my university degree, I worked in several part-time bar/hospitality roles to help fund my degree which equipped me with a wealth of practical skills and experience. I also completed a Year in Industry as an Event Coordinator at MGN Events, an agency which delivers super cool events for both large corporate clients and wealthy private individuals. Whilst I enjoyed the experience and learned a lot, this experience taught me that the Events industry was not somewhere I wanted to build my career.
I completed my final year of University during the COVID-19 pandemic and whilst it was not the final year Uni experience I’d hoped for, it did give me the space to think about my future career and ultimately led me to the conclusion that I wanted to pursue a career in UX design. This inspired me to apply for UX related entry level roles after I’d completed my degree.
What inspired you to apply for this role / this company?
I applied for 96 graduate schemes / entry level roles during my final year of University and ultimately ended the academic year with 0 promising offers. The process of applying for jobs had been long, tiring and emotionally debilitating, hence as my final year drew to a close, I decided to take a break from job hunting and accepted a position at a local climbing gym.
I worked at the gym for about a year and during this time considered multiple entry level UX roles. However, the job descriptions were always the same. They all demanded 2-5 years of experience, instead of a diverse professional portfolio or a design-based degree. I had none of these things, hence did not apply for anything until I saw the Junior UX Analyst position advertised.
The opportunity sounded highly interesting, it seemed as though it offered a lot of potential for personal/professional growth (as entry level roles should), and most importantly it didn’t demand extensive amounts of professional experience (as entry level roles should not). I found this highly attractive and as a result decided to apply.
What has been the single most important thing you have learnt so far during your role?
The ability to convey UX logic behind design suggestions / recommendations in a simple and digestible way to clients.
What would a ‘normal’ day look like for someone in your role?
Good question! In all honesty, no two days are ever the same. One day you might be working on a heuristic review for a large betting client, the next you may be conducting interviews with beauty product users, and the day after that you could be reviewing the Information Architecture for an ecommerce site.
What do you find most interesting about the sector / industry that you're in?
UX falls within the digital/tech industry. I really like that this is an ever-changing and constantly evolving industry as this means that my future career is likely to expand and diversify as the industry does.
What is your company culture like?
It’s a very freeing company culture, which I think is great. They have a lot of trust in their employees to deliver industry-leading work in a time and space that works for them. I think this is a really liberating and positive approach to take to employee management and it shines through in the company culture.
How important is diversity to you and what is Mediabrands doing in that space at the moment?
Diversity is super important to me, especially in the tech sector which has traditionally been dominated by predominantly white 25-25 year old men. I want to see people from all backgrounds come together in this industry and push change forward to make a workplace environment that is fair, inclusive and engaging for everyone.
Mediabrands is doing a lot in this space by constantly evaluating diversity across the business and its agencies as well as supporting charities/social good organisations such as Black Women Rising and True White Allies.
Finally, any tips for someone who’d like to apply for a role at Mediabrands?
- Be yourself: Be honest about what you know/what you can offer. Be honest about what you want to get out of the role during interview stages.
- Be curious: Ask questions during the interview stage about the role and the day-to-day job you can expect to be doing. Ask about the company culture and team you’ll be working in. Ask your interviewers what they’d like to see from you in the first three months of the role and what you can do to really shine.
- Be interested: Make sure a role you’re looking to apply for is something that genuinely interests you and is something you can get passionate about.
- Be committed: If you're asked to complete a task and present it back during the application process, it’s worth putting quality time/effort into it. This may include doing research, creating quality presentation assets and brushing up on your presentation skills.
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Sound exciting? Learn more about Mediabrands here.