Business & Digital Marketing students secure job offers during Launchpad work placement

According to statistics released by the government in March 2022, the number of young people in employment increased by 63,000 from the previous quarter and increased by 253,000 from the previous year to 3.68 million. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy to secure good quality employment.

To help in the hunt, Business & Digital Marketing students from Falmouth University’s Cornwall Business School have spent a week undertaking work experience with cutting edge start-ups from the Launchpad Venture Studio to develop their skills and prepare them for life in the industry.

Falmouth’s innovative Launchpad Venture Studio hosts a variety of enterprising businesses. From AI-assisted fashion solutions to QR- safe payment systems, first year students were given the opportunity to work with a number of businesses over the course of the week. The students worked in groups before pitching their branding and digital marketing proposals to the start-ups.

First year student Violet Jeffrey, who runs her own business Violet Faye Jewellery, said “This has been an amazing experience and I’ve loved every moment.

“The Launchpad business we chose to work with was Airize. It’s a fitness app that encourages people to form exercise partnerships; whether you want to go running, play table tennis or find a gym buddy, you can do it with Airize. 

“It was an amazing opportunity to practice some real-life digital marketing skills, and really underscores the university’s desire to help all students ‘Do It for Real’. It’s been amazing to see how much learning we’ve soaked up on our course so far.”

Four groups pitched their branding and digital marketing proposals to Beta100, INGRID and Glitter Pay and secured two offers of work and a follow up consultation.

Digital Marketing lecturer Vivienne Neale, who initiated the scheme, hopes it will be an opportunity to give future creative freelancers and employees a taste of what it means to work in the vibrant and fast paced world of the creative economy.

“The aim of this week is to stress test the students’ knowledge and their ability to apply theory to real life business experience under strict time frames”, Vivienne told us.

“The business models were all very different, which meant that each strategy needed to be created from scratch. From practising how to think critically, work in teams, hit deadlines and take on additional input from other experts, the students formed highly efficient teams that pitched in a professional manner to an extremely high standard.

“At Falmouth we believe strongly in preparing future entrants to the workplace with highly competitive skills that make them stand out to employers.”

Mollie Manser and Ellie McNair, two third years students, undertook the role of project manager. They told us, “It was such a lovely experience to be able to guide younger students through their first live brief. We were able to share our combined knowledge from our courses and support every aspect of the project from research to support and encouragement.

“It was so worthwhile to watch people develop and grow in such a short period of time.”

Read more about the Cornwall Business School