Q&A with Sarah | my graduate journey

Sarah, you joined us as a graduate, can you tell us about your first experience of working at VisitScotland?

As soon as I joined VisitScotland, I was struck by how welcoming and passionate the staff were. People really care about helping the industry and it really shone through in people’s work and attitude.

The Corporate Communications team was a much bigger team than I had been in before, but everyone made me feel really part of the team and gave me the chance to join any interesting projects or campaigns they were working on.

HR also made sure to connect me with other graduates and recent graduates across the organisation and it was so helpful to have a support network of people on the same career level as me to bounce ideas off of and share the experience with.

What was your motivation for joining our graduate scheme?

After graduating I worked for a few years in a small marketing and communications team gaining lots of experience very quickly, but I was looking for an opportunity to invest a bit more in my learning and development to feel more confident in best practice and as part of a larger organisation.

Working in arts and tourism, I was familiar with VisitScotland’s role in the industry and when the Corporate Communications graduate role came up it ticked a lot of those boxes for learning more about the industry in such a core team.

Can you tell us about your graduate journey to your current role?

My graduate role lasted a year, but was extended during the COVID-19 pandemic. Corporate Communications was a very busy place to be during the pandemic, but also opened up the chance to upskill in crisis comms and I ended up having more of my time working on VisitScotland.org, our corporate website to help with funding.

It was this experience that directly led to me being able to take up a maternity cover year-long contract as Corporate Content Editor for the corporate website. Working on the corporate website was a great chance to engage directly with the industry and helped me to get the experience of a different type of role within a communications team. When the contract was up, I was really lucky to find a permanent role as Content Editor working on the consumer website - visitscotland.com, which is where I am now!

The graduate scheme was the first step that really helped me on my career journey at VisitScotland and I got such a range of experience to enable to feel confident in applying for a more permanent contract in the more consumer-facing and creative role I have now.

How did your graduate role help your career progress?

My experience in the Corporate Communications team was really helpful in my career progression, largely because it offered the opportunity to work with such a range of people within the organisation as well as some key external projects. It increased my understanding and confidence in the role and working with others to be able to make steps upwards and sideways across the organisation. It also introduced me to more colleagues when I was going for other roles so that they were familiar with me and my work which made interviews feel a lot less intimidating!