Digital PR content creator and Wintec Bachelor of Communications graduate Jamie Batters.
Digital PR content creator and Wintec Bachelor of Communications graduate Jamie Batters.
Wintec Te Pūkenga Bachelor of Communication graduate Jamie Batters scored a job at HMC Communications straight after graduating and is already teaching her colleagues all about TikTok.
The Hamilton local graduated from Wintec last year and started with the company as a digital PR content creator, which sees her bringing social media knowledge and next-generation insight into the workplace.
“We have an authentic connection with new generations. And you need to go where the viewers are,” Batters says.
Jamie says a typical workday consists of developing social media content, media releases, e-newsletters and video - “essentially multi-media storytelling” - but recently, she led the way and delivered a workshop on TikTok for her colleagues.
Jamie says she underestimated the value of skills she brings as a new graduate.
“You can bring these new ideas into your workplaces and it can really help. Helping clients and colleagues feel empowered to use new tools is really rewarding.”
Looking back to when she was in high school, Jamie says she never had a class that she really clicked with - until she attended a media studies class in Year 12.
“After my first week, [I decided], yep, that’s what I want to do.”
Jamie Batters (centre) with her colleagues, HMC Communications senior account managers Nicola Lee (left) and Kate Webber.
Jamie liked it so much, she left school after Year 12 to start studying a Bachelor of Communication degree at Wintec.
She says studying at Wintec set her up for the job since the learning was very hands-on, always embedded in real-life applications. For some projects, students even had to make calls and emails and work on building client relationships.
“To start with it was hard to talk to clients, but it’s all practice.”
Jamie says the world of communication is all about how you interpret a story and how you mould that story for each channel for maximum connection - all while growing and developing as a person along the way.
“Because Heather [founder of HMC Communications] is the chairwoman of Prinz [Public Relations Institute of New Zealand], there are a lot of opportunities for development.”
Wintec Communication tutor Abby Dalgety says the industry was looking for graduates with diverse abilities, not only in storytelling, but also digital marketing, video production skills and purpose-driven copywriting.
Find out more about studying communication at the School of Media Arts at the Wintec Te Pūkenga website.
