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Work experience 'integral' to business courses

Agency Life seeks commercial partners

INVESTING in talent is what every business wants but it rarely comes cheap.

A new idea from Manchester Metropolitan University bucks that trend, offering the region's firms a glimpse of their future employees and some extra brainpower at no extra cost.

Agency Life is a partnership between the University and up to 50 businesses operating in marketing, digital, PR, advertising, branding and retail.

The idea is that each business gets up to six talented bright undergraduates to work on problems, projects or anything that needs doing in the business.

Always wanted

The students – from MMU Business School – are being released from their courses, one day a week to fulfil the tasks for free.

David Edmundson-Bird, principal lecturer in Digital Marketing & Enterprise, said: “It costs the business nothing, won't consume a great deal of their time, and they could be looking at the talent they might want to attract in a few years.

“All the students want in return is that experience employers say they must have when they graduate. It's what businesses say and they have always wanted from a university.”

Thye move sees MMU Business School become one of the first to make 'a working day' an obligatory part of a degree course and is designed to support and cultivate the city's burgeoning digital, marketing and PR sector.

So far 27 businesses have signed up to Agency Life.

Interested businesses should come to one of the University’s information events https://mmuagencylife2.eventbrite.com, visit the website http://mmuagencylife.com or  contact David Edmundson-Bird on 0161 247 4603 d.edmundson-bird@mmu.ac.uk

Published Wednesday, 22nd August 2012