By Abi Shevlin & Chloe Baybutt on Thu 05 December 2019 in Placement Blog
We are delighted to announce that we have been shortlisted for the NUE Awards! Take a look into the hard work that went on behind the scenes from our Placement students in this blog written by Abi and Chloe.
Abi
Every year at ProspectSoft, the Placement students take the lead in creating our application for the coveted NUE Awards, which is ran by RateMyPlacement. These awards are the perfect opportunity to showcase the ways in which companies contribute to undergraduate employability, through the opportunities they provide and the dedication to placement schemes that differentiate themselves from the rest! We’ve now won the "Top Small to Medium-sized Undergraduate Employer” award an incredible 7 times now, and hopefully, we can do it again this year!
Planning, Planning & More Planning!
Initially, we had to decide the best way to put across all of our efforts from the past year, to show how placements have really made a difference to the success and growth of the business. As there are 2 elements to the application, one written and one creative, we decided on creating an animated video for the creative part to showcase everything we’ve achieved. As we knew this was going to involve careful planning and consideration, we created a storyboard to set out the different scenes in the video, along with the content of what we felt would set us apart from the rest. To keep it personal, fun and engaging, us placements scripted and recorded the voiceovers in-house, and, despite a few bloopers, we got there in the end!
Now, let me pass you over to Chloe to tell you about the rest of the application process!
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Chloe
Creating & Editing the Video
Video editing is something I had no experience in before starting my placement at ProspectSoft! The task of creating the NUE application video was assigned to me within the first few weeks of starting here - a slightly daunting task due to the many successes ProspectSoft have had over the past decade! Aside from that, I was excited to get stuck in with my fellow Marketing team to brainstorm ideas for the visual aspect of the application. We decided early on in the process that we wanted to use animation software, so we planned out the storyboard and script and started the voice recordings! As Abi mentioned, recording the voiceovers was a lot harder than we first anticipated and we spent lots of time making sure they were perfect for the video!
The software itself was initially a little tricky to use, as I’d never used anything like it before, but after the first few scenes I quickly got into the swing of using it – allowing me to be as creative as I wanted. After a few reviews and feedback from our Head of Marketing, Jess, it was finally good to go! The only thing left was to find some music to tie it all together – the whole department had an input into the music, and we decided on one track together. Overall, it was a highly rewarding experience, and I’ve now started using the software to create other videos for the Placement Programme! Take a look at our video application here!
Back over to Abi to tell you about how the written application went!
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Abi
Written Application
After creating, recording and editing the video application, it was time to tackle the written application! This was a great chance to flesh out a few more of the key details that were included in the video, breaking down the successes within each department. With a few days to go before the deadline, the application was ready to be sent! This was an extremely nerve-wracking experience, as all of our hard work had come to an end and there was nothing else we could do!
The Awards
We’re absolutely over the moon to announce that all of our hard work has paid off, as we've been shortlisted for “Top Small to Medium-sized Undergraduate Employer”! The whole experience for us placements has been very rewarding, taking full responsibility of the entire application process.
The awards take place in London on 28th Feb, so hopefully we can secure an 8th win for ProspectSoft!
Every year at ProspectSoft, the Placement students take the lead in creating our application for the coveted NUE Awards, which is ran by RateMyPlacement. These awards are the perfect opportunity to showcase the ways in which companies contribute to undergraduate employability, through the opportunities they provide and the dedication to placement schemes that differentiate themselves from the rest! We’ve now won the "Top Small to Medium-sized Undergraduate Employer” award an incredible 7 times now, and hopefully, we can do it again this year!
Planning, Planning & More Planning!
Initially, we had to decide the best way to put across all of our efforts from the past year, to show how placements have really made a difference to the success and growth of the business. As there are 2 elements to the application, one written and one creative, we decided on creating an animated video for the creative part to showcase everything we’ve achieved. As we knew this was going to involve careful planning and consideration, we created a storyboard to set out the different scenes in the video, along with the content of what we felt would set us apart from the rest. To keep it personal, fun and engaging, us placements scripted and recorded the voiceovers in-house, and, despite a few bloopers, we got there in the end!
Now, let me pass you over to Chloe to tell you about the rest of the application process!
---
Chloe
Creating & Editing the Video
Video editing is something I had no experience in before starting my placement at ProspectSoft! The task of creating the NUE application video was assigned to me within the first few weeks of starting here - a slightly daunting task due to the many successes ProspectSoft have had over the past decade! Aside from that, I was excited to get stuck in with my fellow Marketing team to brainstorm ideas for the visual aspect of the application. We decided early on in the process that we wanted to use animation software, so we planned out the storyboard and script and started the voice recordings! As Abi mentioned, recording the voiceovers was a lot harder than we first anticipated and we spent lots of time making sure they were perfect for the video!
The software itself was initially a little tricky to use, as I’d never used anything like it before, but after the first few scenes I quickly got into the swing of using it – allowing me to be as creative as I wanted. After a few reviews and feedback from our Head of Marketing, Jess, it was finally good to go! The only thing left was to find some music to tie it all together – the whole department had an input into the music, and we decided on one track together. Overall, it was a highly rewarding experience, and I’ve now started using the software to create other videos for the Placement Programme! Take a look at our video application here!
Back over to Abi to tell you about how the written application went!
---
Abi
Written Application
After creating, recording and editing the video application, it was time to tackle the written application! This was a great chance to flesh out a few more of the key details that were included in the video, breaking down the successes within each department. With a few days to go before the deadline, the application was ready to be sent! This was an extremely nerve-wracking experience, as all of our hard work had come to an end and there was nothing else we could do!
The Awards
We’re absolutely over the moon to announce that all of our hard work has paid off, as we've been shortlisted for “Top Small to Medium-sized Undergraduate Employer”! The whole experience for us placements has been very rewarding, taking full responsibility of the entire application process.
The awards take place in London on 28th Feb, so hopefully we can secure an 8th win for ProspectSoft!