Emmanuel Adeyemo went to Beat 106.3 hoping to get hired as a presenter, but the station were so impressed by his skills that they bypassed their normal intern route and offered him a broadcast assistant role which evolved into production manager two months later.
The 2020 De Montfort University (DMU) Media Production graduate participated in the Future Leaders Programme , which he credits with helping him secure his first job.
He said: “It helped to open my mind up to leaving university and how I go about getting a job.
“I didn’t use LinkedIn back then but after completing university I applied skills I took from that whole experience”
Beat 106.3 is a local radio station based in the London Borough of Brent and concentrates on creating content for the Afro-Caribbean diaspora. Brent was awarded the Borough of Culture in 2020 so the radio station places an emphasis upon celebrating the cultures in the area.
Emmanuel has produced and presented the Brent Culture 2020 show and he oversees programme production.
Studying Media Production at DMU exposed Emmanuel to a range of multimedia production skills in both television and radio.
“I have a home radio studio and I started that 5 years ago. So, I started podcasting in my room so radio has always been in line with what I have wanted to do for a quite a while,” he said.
Identifying what skills he could use in the workplace helped Emmanuel to make the transition into employment from education.
He said: “Certain skills are transferable, and you adapt. Media production is probably easier to translate because my current role involves editing, the purpose maybe different but you transfer the skill.”
Emmanuel also praised the teaching staff for the support they offered: “I did have a number of lecturers I felt understood the dynamics of university and how other factors aside from uni come into play.”
Building a support network of friends and peers was also possible thanks to the university being located in the diverse city of Leicester.
“In terms of finding your own tribe, we gravitate to people who are like us. I am Black and Nigerian, and a lot of my friendship group are Black, and it wasn’t hard to find because in Leicester there are a lot of Black students,” he said.
“I am an extroverted person so the degree opened the doors to mix with a diverse group of students.”
After completing his studies Emmanuel focused on getting a job. He came close to a potential role at Sony Music but after three interviews and making it to the second stage he was not successful.
He said: “I wouldn’t say it was disappointing. I took it as a really big positive because all the way through the interview process, I was getting really excellent reviews up until the last stage.”
Emmanuel urges universities to ensure their curriculums are inclusive to help students feel reflected.
“We are not in 1805 where there was not a lot of diversity in the UK. We are in 2021, the world is diverse. There is a mixture of different people and cultures. We need to learn from one another, we can only flourish when we can work together, when we can fully understand ourselves and each other,” he said.
Tune in to an interview with Emmanuel on our podcast
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