Paula Williams - Producer
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Video Interview Transcript
My name is Paula Williams and I am a Sky News producer and I work on the home desk on Forward Planning. Forward Planning comprises producers and news editors, and they work in conjunction with each other to put out the news. What I get into is researching and news gathering and trying to find stories and then basically we try to find the best way to put those stories out to the viewer.
Interestingly enough my background is in the arts. Prior to working at Sky News I had not worked in Television before. I sent off my CV and a cover letter just expressing my interest in News and, in particular, television news.
I would say a good CV is no more than two pages. It is concise and to the point and it is very positive and it is about putting forward what you can bring to the organisation. Equally important is the cover letter. Never send a CV on its own, always have a good cover letter to summarise how good you are on that CV and how beneficial it would be for the organisation to have you.
I do believe that the nature of working within the media in any capacity is you do have to work just that little bit harder, mainly to be prepared to do the jobs that you do not actually think are going to lead you anywhere, but are actually going to get you a lot of experience. Like, if you are going to get work experience you should go after it, and it may just be, as people say, just collecting papers or being around people that are producing, but that way you get an opportunity to see what people are doing and learn from it. So it is very much about working hard, being prepared to go that extra mile and, in turn, hopefully the luck comes your way.