‘Meet the Mentors’ Episode 1, with Will de Groot.

We’re delighted to announce we’ve started the Hype Collective Podcast, a podcast dedicated to exploring our some of our projects and giving students insight into life outside of uni.

With hosts Josh Akapo and Paul Stollery, youth marketing assistant and creative director respectively at Hype Collective, we’ll be giving you new episodes every two weeks with each series.

Our first series, ‘Meet the Mentors’ was created through our Hype Mentoring Scheme, which connects young people to the creative industries. We connected 15 talented young people to 15 amazing mentors working across marketing, advertising, PR and more.

However there were so many more young people who wanted to gain a little insight into the industry, so we decided to interview six of our mentors about how they got to where they are now, and what advice they’d have for students and young people trying to get their foot in the door.

On our very first episode, we spoke to Will de Groot, Head of Insight at The Elephant Room, about his role and how he ended up there, the true meaning of research, and how best to approach the creative industry as someone who may not have a lot of knowledge or experience.

Will took us through his career, beginning on a youth panel during university, then delving into teaching English in Japan straight after graduation, before getting back into the creative industries through strategy and research roles. Most recently, he took the leap of faith to co-found creative agency The Elephant Room.

We touched on how his career path isn’t linear, but also how we shouldn’t expect a perfectly aligned progression in our careers and that it’s not always a bad thing to be unconventional.

Will also gave insight into the world of research, telling us how it is a lot more than “stuffy people with clipboards”, rather encompasses travel, facilitation, and a lot more in the way of excitement.

We also spoke about on how to best approach this industry as a young person; with CVs becoming increasingly outdated, how would one go about introducing themselves to a potential employer?

We talked about so much more, so be sure to listen to us on Spotify or SoundCloud and be sure to share with everyone you know:

To keep up with all that Will is doing, be sure to follow his Twitter, and check out his platform on masculinity, MEND. To keep up-to-date with all Hype Collective Podcast episodes, and more amazing content we create, be sure to follow us on Twitter and Instagram, and like our page on Facebook.

We’ll be back next week with another instalment, until then.

In-episode mentions:

Ami Vadi – Graphic designer and graduate; check out her work here.

Denzel Kessie – Illustrator, graphic designer and graduate, check out his work here.

The Guestlist – A network for creators. Inclusively exclusive for those wanting to share, promote, engage and build. For more information or to join, contact Shanice Mears via Twitter.