Holly Turner - Team Assistant at BBC Introducing

Hey! My name is Holly Turner and I am a Team Assistant at BBC Introducing in the South West! I am also a MA Film Production student at the University of Lincoln. Previously I was the team assistant at BBC Introducing in Lincolnshire but due to my university work left that job to have more time for my assignments. I have also been a student radio presenter for 3 years and a student radio station manager for a year. I have also previously owned a graphic design and media service company and produced a podcast called ‘Industry Wannabes’.

It took me a while to whittle down the many pieces of advice I’ve been given in my career so far, but I think I’ve taken the five most powerful snippets of advice that changed the way I approach my work currently.

Always say yes

If anyone ever asks me for advice this is the one piece I will always say. This piece of advice has gotten me to where I am today. At the time I was a student radio presenter and my student station manager told me to take any opportunity I am offered, and to ‘Always say yes.’ Now, this is to be taken with a piece of salt, creative burnout is real and looking after your mental health is crucial - but if you feel like you can take on an opportunity given to you - take it. I was offered the role of student station manager and I almost said no.

I was worried about my final year workload and how doing this role would affect that, but saying yes to that offer granted me my first job at the BBC, as I was recommended by someone else at the student station for that job. Sometimes these opportunities you might be afraid of doing or you might even believe they offer no benefits, can sometimes be the one thing you need to get into your career. So if anyone asks for advice, I always tell someone - if you have mental and physical space to do it, do it. After the crazy run of luck I’ve had throughout my career, even if my head says no, I remind myself of this piece of advice - and so far it hasn’t gone badly!

If you don’t get it right the first time, try again. 

Something that was a humbling moment for me when I first entered my career was the number of times I got things wrong. One of my colleagues from my previous job told me ‘Id rather you get it wrong and learn from it, than not know anything at all’. This is something that I am still reminding myself of. I am one of the biggest people pleasers you will meet and hearing I’ve done a mistake is soul-crushing. However, with a recent change of mindset, I see failure as a chance to learn. I have learnt that the time I spend punishing myself for a small mistake could be spent bettering myself.

This change of mindset has made me realise how much of my life I have wasted by self-depreciation when I could’ve spent that time learning and progressing as a human being. When I ran my student radio station for a year when I trained future presenters, I told them - if there is a place to make mistakes it is here, this is a place to learn and to flourish your interest in radio. A mistake doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. After all, we are all human and it is impossible to never make a mistake! Just take it as a chance to learn and grow!

Network, Network, Network.

I remember my lecturer telling me once ‘If there’s one thing I want you to do, set up a LinkedIn’ I didn’t quite understand why, but now I do. The amount of opportunities I have made by collaborating with people I made connections with online and in person is mind-blowing. I used to think ‘pft, there is no way this random person will collaborate with me eventually’ but in the end we did. I also like to look at it this way: the creative industry is an expansive place, and the chance to move around and try different media practices is there.

The more people you make a connection with the more chance they know someone who is hiring or they themselves are looking for someone. A lot of my opportunities have come from personal recommendations, so networking can sometimes be a real advantage in your career and not something to shrug off! 

Passion is everything. 

One thing I didn’t understand when embarking on my career is how crucial passion is to a project. I didn’t believe it when people told me it is obvious when a piece of work is made without passion. But after honing my craft in my undergraduate degree and now in my master’s, I can see right through a piece of work that doesn’t have passion. I have had a few assignments I didn’t enjoy as much and my grades reflected which modules I enjoyed and which I didn’t.

In my personal experience - your best work comes from those you feel passionate about. So find out what inspires you and try to work towards that.  Sometimes, I feel like I have manifested my job at Introducing as supporting local artists is truly my passion. I haven’t woken up for a shift yet where I haven’t been excited to get right into my work! It still amazes me to this day that after doing some jobs that were so unmotivating it physically hurt, that now I’ve joined the creative industry I work for something I love and get paid for it! 

It’s OK to relax and take a break.

I am a true work lover, I never used to switch off. I always had work going around my brain 24/7 to the point where I struggled to sleep, as I was that busy thinking about what to do next. But what I didn’t start actively practising until recently was realising when I had hit my burnout. I am a firm believer in allowing your creative mind and mental health to have a break every day (if possible). I used to work all night without stopping on assignments, but I would find when I came back to my work after falling asleep that I would delete 75% of the work I had done. This was because I pushed myself too far so I lost the standard I had whilst I could function well.

I actively force myself to leave my room or even just go on TikTok for 15-30 minutes or even the whole evening, as I have found my productivity levels have grown exponentially, after realising taking a break is more beneficial than forcing myself to work. I still struggle with this and the guilt of taking a break whilst working - but in the long run, I finish my project faster and to a higher standard. So if you are like me and feel guilty for taking a break, then just remind yourself, you deserve it! 

As a concluding note - just believe in yourself, I didn’t at first! I never scored highly in my classes but now I have started telling myself I can do it, my work standard has grown and my grades have gotten higher.

You are capable and you can do it, the only person stopping you from achieving your dream is you! I have learnt that now!