Lyons Leadership

Finishing university just in time to catch the credit crunch in full swing, I think I can honestly say I never thought I’d find a job that would combine the skills I’d gained with actually doing something useful and even getting to be a bit creative with it too. I thought I’d end up stuck in a shop or a call centre like so many graduates before me, waiting for the opportunity that we all know never comes. I’d trained as a journalist but I was under no illusions that i’d find employment as one – it’s difficult enough to find that sort of work even at the best of times and I’m just not pushy enough!

I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that my degree had been a waste of time and money and that I should probably phone the call centre where I’d worked before I went to uni, when someone suggested I should think about looking into SEO and internet marketing. I thought it all sounded a bit technical for me, but I was quickly offered a three month work placement with a local internet marketing company so I thought, what do I have to lose.

I’ll be honest, I hadn’t thought about SEO as a job possibility, I’d never even heard of it before and had no idea that there were people out there spending their days trying to better people’s websites by thinking up new ways to manipulate online resources, but two and a half months in to my SEO training I’m really enjoying it. There’s a lot of very hard work involved and yes, at times it can feel like you’re banging your head repeatedly against a brick wall. But seeing the site you’ve spent so much time working on climbing up the ranks on Google is its own reward. I’ve learnt a lot in the last three months and it goes without saying I’m glad I didn’t make that call to the call centre!