Meet The Young Graduates From ‘Create Jobs’ Forging A Path To Greatness

The creative industry in the UK is packed to the brim with innovative, enterprising and driven young people eager to project their talents and brands in their chosen fields. From music to film to fashion and everything in between, many are finding their purpose and proving there’s not one road to success paved out. From the outside looking in, however—for those eager to get a foot in the door—it may prove daunting, not only to find a field but to acquire the skills needed to implement their vision.

Luckily, this is where the good people at Create Jobs come in. Operating since 2011, the London-based programme offers young people aged 18-24 the opportunity to find employment within the creative industry via an intensive 4-6-week online course, giving an insight into the field of their choice.

A batch of new courses are set to kick off imminently (under Creativity Works), spanning content production, digital product design, photography and podcasting, with an application deadline of October 1. Having supported 80% of its former students into careers and further training, Create Jobs has worked extensively to help a new cohort of would-be creators to find their footing in the industry. It is because of their efforts that its students have begun to make names for themselves and spread their creative wings. In turn, the program itself has gone from strength to strength.

We spoke to a number of the course’s successful graduates about what they took from the program and how they’ve applied what they learned into their budding careers.

Emerging snapper Kevin Chemuka took the Photography course last year after a short period of unemployment. Studying there for six weeks, he was enamoured with the course’s dedication to nurturing talent. “Initially, it was wow,” he tells Complex. “They’ve really thought about what we’d be getting upskilled on. By facilitating each week with something new, I was grateful to be part of this six-week journey.” Under the Create Jobs banner, Chemuka moulded his own approach to photography, producing a portrait series entitled ‘My Role Models’, which tells the story of four friends and the implications of being a positive role model. “It’s work I see myself revisiting to remind me of the power of a still image,” he says.

Since finishing the course, Chemuka has gone from strength to strength. Last August, he shot images for the New Normal project, which documents creatives residing in East London. He has also dipped his toes in video direction, and he owes his success to Create Jobs, which opened up his creative mind to the fullest. He says “the course made me think about what the story is that I’m trying to tell, who’s the subject, what does the subject want to say. I think it helped me to think and answer all of these questions in a more holistic approach. And I’ll never be done with learning; there’s always something worth doing and worth questioning.”

Filmmaker Juliana Ogechi came across the Content Production course via a Twitter search in 2018, determined to find a way into the creative industry. Over a frantic six weeks starting in February 2019, she and her colleagues got to grips with storyboarding, filming and editing via a series of talks and masterclasses from esteemed teams such as Tim & Barry and Untold Studios. “It was pure excitement,” she says. “I learnt that it was possible for me to put my ideas to the test, and for it to mean something. To someone. Somewhere.” Ogechi’s creative journey via Create Jobs culminated in her final project, ‘My Fridge Is’, an immersive film tackling London’s housing story from the perspective of a fridge. “I thought that this would be a powerful analogy to portray the social inequalities that exist in London,” she explains. “I felt like it was a key moment where I knew with confidence that my ideas belonged somewhere.”

Since graduating from the course, Ogechi has taken her skills into podcasting, and now hosts the No Shame In My Name Podcast, in which she asks guests to break down the stories and meanings behind their names. If anything, Create Jobs equipped her with the personal and proffesional skills to generate ideas and execute them with confidence. “The course really taught me about the power of perseverance,” she explains. “Prior to doing the course, I always felt this pressure to do things perfectly. But I have come to realise that perfection is unattainable. I have found that the fun of storytelling is in the unplanned, the unscheduled, the spontaneous. It's all a part of the process.”

Taking the Broadcast Training programme in 2017, Cassandra Kyeyune enrolled off the back of an internship with a start-up music and creative agency. She soon became immersed in the world of broadcasting, via talks with executives, producers and presenters and tours of radio stations such as BBC Radio 1Xtra and Capital Xtra. “I loved how the course included people who were all at very different stages of their journey into the ‘industry’ and with very distinct interests and goals,” she tells Complex. “Their programmes are generally open to people up until the age of 30, which can be invaluable when coming into the industry at a later stage in life.” Producing a one-off podcast as her main project, working with a group was integral for her to understand what’s important as a young creative. “It reaffirmed to me the importance of taking ownership of the stories I want to tell,” she says, “and ensure that I approach them with the proper level of care and commitment that they are deserving of.”

After finishing the course, Kyeyune landed a position in the Global Music Marketing department at Universal Music, before returning to Create Jobs as part of its Meet-A-Mentor programme and progressing through Channel 4’s Production Trainee Scheme. She is now a freelancer in the TV industry and was recently commissioned to produce content for the BBC’s New Creatives section. Kyeyune still has fond memories of her time with Create Jobs. “Meeting the people who were on the course with me and the programme organisers was my biggest takeaway,” she explains. “The relationships I built and have maintained since being on the course have been priceless in my development and keeping me on track when work dries up or gets tough.”

Failsafe is a collective consisting of eight members—Timi, Dubheasa, Naila, David, Eric, Marcella, Maria and Rachael—who met on Create Jobs’ Visual Storytelling course back in 2018, undergoing training via masterclasses from photographers and platforms such as It’s Nice That and Black In The Day. Each member followed an individual path, but the course honed their varying talents, and they struck a bond as a team. “What made this course better was the fact that we clicked as a group,” says Dubheasa. “It was the perfect group dynamic and we were all starting out and in need of friends in the industry that you could collaborate on projects and signpost to opportunities.” Failsafe’s efforts culminated in a final photographic project that expressed their perspectives of the city of London, and they’ve spread their wings significantly since.

Now set to release their first zine as a fully-fledged collective, Failsafe are using the skills acquired from the course to champion the work of creatives trying to access the industry, of any and every discipline and something of a full circle moment as former students passing a torch of sorts to the next generation. “Through the course,” says Timi, “I learned that London’s creative scene is made up of physical spaces that you should make a conscious effort to access.” This course “got the ball rolling” for Naila. “Before taking it,” she says, “I was very enthusiastic about photography and the arts in general, and it opened my mind up to the idea that it was a tangible and real possibility.”