Name: India Bates
Age: 24
Job title: Social media coordinator
Company & location: Good Hemp, London
Education: I studied Geography at Queen Mary University of London from 2016 to 2019
Why did you decide to go for a career in food? I have always loved travelling and trying new food in different countries. I also really enjoy cooking – it’s how I relax! So when we got put into lockdown, my now fiancé and I decided to start a food Instagram account to share all the food images we had taken over the years, including both home-cooked meals and different restaurants. This sparked my love of social media, particularly the foodie side, which is why I was so excited when the Good Hemp role became available – it was a combination of everything I loved.
Explain your job to us in a sentence (or two): That’s a tricky one. My role is essentially to manage all things social media and relay Good Hemp’s key messages on all of our social media channels and our website. From Instagram to TikTok to LinkedIn, to managing our ambassadors and running photo and video shoots to creating blog content. Anything you see on our socials is carefully planned out by myself, of course with the help of our lovely content creators.
What does a typical day look like for you? What I really like about my role is that each day is completely different so it might be easier to tell you a few typical tasks I have to complete each week:
1. Organising the content calendar so there is always a theme for the week, whilst adding in interactive posts for our followers in the form of giveaways and collaborations with other companies.
2. Writing blogs, uploading recipes and webinars to the website.
3. Creating content for our weekly emails
4. Organising shoots to promote our products and any new products that we have in the works.
5. Managing our influencers we work with.
6. Lots of meetings!
Tell us about how you went about applying for your job. I was lucky enough to be contacted by a recruiter who worked with Good Hemp before, so the application process was fairly smooth. I had to send over my CV and the following week I had an initial call with the brand manager so we could get to know each other better and I could learn more about the company.
The second interview was a presentation. I basically had to review all their social accounts and the type of content they had produced over the past few years, and I explained what I thought they could do to improve upon it. I received a call a few days later and heard I got the job.
The interview feels like a lifetime ago but one question that I always find tough is ‘what would you change or what don’t you like about how the company are running the socials so far?’. It always feels slightly awkward explaining everything you would change about the company if you were to get the role, but the company always wants an honest answer that can help improve their business.
“I had to learn a lot about the hemp industry. It’s actually a lot more scientific than some may think”
What’s the best part about working for a food company? One of the best things is of course the freebies! When I started my role, I got a box full of all their bestsellers to try and if I ever run out of a product I get to send it to myself, which is always fun. If Good Hemp is working with another food brand I often get sent their products to create content with and of course eat as well!
And what’s the biggest misconception people have about working in food & drink? Everyone thinks that if you love food, then the food industry is for you and it’s really easy to get into. However, I think it’s is a lot more complicated than that as there is so much competition and you need to work out whether you want to work for a restaurant chain or a brand that sells in shops and online. For Good Hemp I had to learn a lot about the hemp industry, the benefits of adding hemp into the diet and the environmental benefits. It’s actually a lot more scientific than some may think, and perhaps this wouldn’t be everyone’s cup of tea.
What advice would you give to other young people looking to get into the food & drink industry? Like any industry you’re trying to get into, you need to show why you have a passion for the role and what you will be doing on a day-to-day basis. For me, I already had a food Instagram account that I had been running which has almost 40k followers so the brand manager could see that I enjoyed creating and organising content about food. Starting a blog page or creating an Instagram or TikTok account dedicated to food and drinks is a good place to start.
What’s your ultimate career dream? My ultimate career goal would be to run my own business – I have a love of travel and food so if I could find something that combined both of those, that would be the dream.
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