From catering to copywriting

From catering to copywriting

Claudia Trotter

Since Melbourne’s recent emergence out of restrictions, I thought it was about time I knuckled down and found myself a “real” adult job. I desperately wanted to end my hospitality career, to stop picking up empty glasses and serving rowdy drunken people at AFL matches, and secure a role within the editorial industry. LinkedIn became my closest friend—I spent hours scrolling through job opportunities daily, tweaking and rearranging my resume and cover letters with the small hope that I might actually land something. But all I heard was crickets. Not even rejection letters—just utter silence.

I began to get fed up with putting in tireless effort, applying for roles and never hearing anything back, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. I wrote a list of over twenty companies I envisioned myself working for and I cold-emailed them all with a brief explanation of who I was and what kind of work I was looking for. Of these firms, I heard back from just one, but that one was all I needed. A week later I went in for an interview and was popping open a bottle of wine that night to celebrate my new role and the end of my long, prosperous hospitality career, one that no longer had a space in my life.

I am three weeks into my new job and I have to say, I’m seriously loving it. I’m a digital copywriter at Romano Beck, a PR/Marketing agency based in St Kilda. I am going into the office two days a week and fitting my Master of Writing and Publishing degree around it. Throughout my day, I am lucky enough to be able to work with a number of reputable brands: L’Oréal, Mercedes-Benz, F45 and Chadstone, just to name a few. I may be briefed on a copywriting task for one of these clients, which requires me to write anywhere from one sentence to 500 words of copy to be featured on the respective brands’ website and social media platforms.

The biggest challenge of the role is the utmost necessity to understand the tone of voice and intention of the specific brand I am working for, then to write their content in a way that communicates exactly who they are. Over the course of one day, I could be writing refined, to-the-point copy for a media release in the morning, and then moving on to a light-hearted description of a lipstick in the afternoon.

Through my time in the Bowen Street Press and my editorial work experience, I feel most prepared in the sense of being able to communicate professionally and effectively with internal and external clients. The BSP’s focus on collaboration, and the relationships we form with our teammates and outside contributors, collectively forces us to learn how to write emails, develop and send feedback, and communicate with people across multiple platforms. My job involves me responding to a brief and interacting with a number of individuals at different brands who are critiquing and fine-tuning my writing. This is often over a long series of emails, phone calls or face-to-face conversations.

The BSP also invited me to write for a whole range of publications in a variety of forms—nonfiction, fiction, poetry, blog posts, the list goes on. Similarly, at Romano Beck, I am writing anything from 150-word blurbs describing autumn fashion trends, to writing social media captions for car models of Mercedes-Benz; adaptability is vital. Like my first day at the BSP, I was thrown in the deep end straight away, which I believe is truly the best way to make mistakes, learn, and achieve success.