Empowering Potential: Mia’s Work placement experience
9 April 2026
We are committed to helping young people build the confidence, skills, and aspirations they need to move on to sustained, positive destinations.
Through the power of mentoring, meaningful experiences such as work placements, and by ensuring young people have a voice in shaping our policy work and much more, we aim to open up opportunities to realise their potential, expand future horizons and amplify their voice.
We are always delighted to support young people on their journey, giving them the chance to develop new skills, gain real-world experience, and discover their potential. We were therefore delighted to recently welcome Mia to the Mitchell Library, where she completed a two-day marketing and communications work experience placement as part of her school programme.
Here’s what Mia had to say about her experience. Please note that stock photography has been used.
“My name is Mia, I spent 2 days doing Marketing work experience at MCR Pathways. I was initially nervous starting work experience as this was my first work experience placement. I started to get more comfortable with office life as I learned more about MCR Pathways and the work I was going to do as part of my placement.
“I met multiple different team members who all gave me different insights into the industry such as interviewing, marketing theory, social media, partnerships and policy. The lessons on basic marketing theory were really helpful and useful for the future tasks I would undertake. By applying these techniques I could do the tasks without much assistance and felt like I was fully utilising my learning.
“After I completed a few lessons on basic marketing strategies such as the 8ps, Brand Strategies, Messaging and the Customer Journey. I was able to look at the communications and the Strategic Plan and see how these link together and set the goal for at least the next few years.
“After this I was given a task that involved market research of other similar charities to help with a SWOT Analysis. This was a really interesting task as I was able to dig deep into what other charities are doing and how MCR Pathways could improve and where they were ahead of the game.
“I also had the opportunity to meet a mentor and interview them about their experiences mentoring and why it is such a worthwhile thing to commit yourself to. Before I started the interview I was given a lesson on interviewing techniques and how to get clear, concise answers. I came up with a few questions of my own to ask the mentor and was then able to question him.
“Overall, my work experience with MCR Pathways helped give me a clearer understanding of the Marketing industry and MCR as an organisation. I was able to develop my confidence in a professional working environment and use the skills I was taught to undertake an interview task and a market research task.
“I am hoping to apply to a marketing course at university and I’m looking forward to using what I learned over the past couple days in my application and my future career in marketing.”
“I think Mia has an incredibly bright future ahead of her in marketing and communications. We were delighted to provide a positive experience that has reaffirmed her interest in developing her learning at university and building an exciting future career,” said Gary Seath, MCR Pathways Strategic Communications Lead.
“I was massively impressed by Mia’s ability to turn theory into practice so quickly, achieving so much in just two days. We were so impressed that we have offered her a summer internship to continue developing her knowledge, skills, and experience, while contributing to communicating the impact of MCR Pathways’ work in ensuring every young person who needs one has a Trusted Adult Volunteer Mentor.”
Find out more about becoming a Volunteer Mentor with MCR Pathways: https://mcrpathways.org/become-a-mentor/
