Harry Potter: How It Helped My Career!

Those of you who know me know that I love Harry Potter, like really love it and for as long as I can remember I have been a Potterhead. (Even during my love for anime days.) But this post isn’t about my love for Harry Potter but rather how my love for Harry Potter helped me in my career… well at least how it helped me start my career.

Society Life

I guess you could say it started off when I joined the Harry Potter (known as Dumbledore’s Army) society at University during my undergrad years. It was (and still is to this day) the only society I ever joined and its a constant in my life that I owe a lot to.

After my first year and perfect attendance I was offered the opportunity of being one of the first Head of Houses (member representative).  I loved that role, and after 2 years of wizarding bliss I never thought I’d get the chance to go back. That was until I decided to do my Masters.

Getting back into the life of aiding in the running of a society was literally like riding a bike. The hardest part was that, bar a few members, no one knew who I was and I was elected back into my previous role. This time round being a Head of House was not my only role.

From Head of House to Social Media Co-ordinator

My return to the society also sparked my want to match my volunteering work with my career goals and with limited committee members I decided it was time to step up my game. Que becoming (originally one of two) social media co-ordinator and I jumped into the role full guns blazing. I started off by creating some new modern branding via social media cover images and in January 2018, I did a complete rebrand of the society’s website following on from the cover images. I also worked on creating the societies first ever apparel.

I of course didn’t just work on rebranding. 6 days a week I scheduled post to Instagram, once a week I posted a poll and shared relevant posts on Twitter  and when needed I shared valuable information across the Facebook group. I also produced a magazine for society promotion for the start of each semester.

Grabbing the job

When it came to updating my CV for my current job (a top tip I would recommend anyone to do btw), I felt the only way I can show my value was to highlight all the work I put into the society’s social channels. Then when it came to my interview, talk about what I had learned and was learning being a social media co-ordinator alongside my studies of course.

It is surprising how much employers love when you have a interest. When I talk to all my other friends from the society, they all say that being part of the society and being able to talk about the interest helped secured their jobs. It’s something that even now my boss engages me about, I quite often receive emails about the latest Harry Potter news they find. In my view, having an interest outside of your academic achievements and career goals makes you interesting, especially when you can talk about how it impacts your life (more than just in a love for the topic).

So there you have it a brief look at how my love for Harry Potter helped me get started in my career. If you want to no more feel free to comment or you can take a look at the gallery below about my visit to the Harry Potter studio tour in London.

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