The September 2024 Postgraduate Marketing Conference (Mark's Version)

FindAUniversity recently hosted our flagship Postgraduate Marketing and Recruitment Conference at Havas Village in London: the only event of this size fully dedicated to issues in Masters and PhD communications, audience, insight and engagement.

As an alternative to the traditional conference report, our compere, Mark, shares his experience of the day...

I need to be on a train in an hour and my Taylor Swift t-shirt hasn't arrived. A quick check on Amazon reveals that it won't be here until at least 5pm, by which time I'll be in London, with the rest of the FindAUniversity Events team, getting ready to put on the UK's biggest postgraduate marketing and recruitment event.

Why do I need a Taylor Swift t-shirt? Because someone (me) decided to theme a keynote around the 'Eras' of postgraduate recruitment: setting the scene for an inclusive conference, reflecting on where we are and helping to introduce some key issues for people newer to PG marketing and recruitment. The t-shirt was supposed to be funny. Instead it's on a van somewhere.

At least my slides are mostly done.

It's raining. Really, really, raining. I'm sat in Sheffield station trying to fix an awkward chart, and I can see the FAU events team coming down the path from the office: Zoe, our Events Manager, Sophie, our Events Officer and Eva, our Head of Events. The rain doesn't seem to phase them (they've had tougher journeys) and, in any case, my laptop probably wouldn't make for a very good umbrella. The rain stops about 30 seconds after the team are inside (of course it does) and we meet up on the train.

The train is... a British train. I manage to prop my phone on my knee, balance a coffee on my head and review my slides without moving either of my elbows. Or at least that's what it feels like. The guy next to me is probably very confused by all these time series graphs intermixed with pictures of Taylor Swift.

We've dropped equipment off at the spectacular Havas Village in King's Cross (courtesy of our lovely friends and hosts at Havas People) and walked to our hotel in nearby Camden. Maree, our Head of Student Engagement, is here – having marched across London to beat Google's route estimate. She's in the right team.

Zoe has found us a truly inspired pizza place (I can confirm that honey and chilli works as a topping, but you'll have to ask Sophie about carbonara). With dinner over we head across the way to The World's End pub.

Here, as I cheerfully inform the team, is where a much younger (and more hirsute) Mark used to drink and headbang in the early 2000s. He definitely would not have been wearing a Taylor Swift t-shirt.

The pub is suitably impressive, although the less said about Maree's gin and tonic, the better. The team head back to the hotel and I stay for one more drink to read my book. I do not, in fact, read my book. Instead I sit and run through my presentation, in my head. This is a strange thing to do whilst listening to Glenn Danzig screaming in the background.

I buy a t-shirt on the way out.

8.30am

We're at the venue and getting ready to welcome delegates. Everyone has slept about as well as can be expected and is ready for the day ahead. The only fly in the ointment is actually a spider (reputed to be 'big') in a hotel room.

The Havas team have made set-up pretty seamless and the FAU events team are absolute professionals. This leaves little for me to do other than plug in a laptop, go over notes, check the safety briefing and drink too much coffee. It takes about two cups before I decide to create a Taylor Swift playlist and leave it running in the keynote room.

9.15am

Delegates have begun to arrive and are catching up over refreshments in the breakout area. I wander through and soak up the cheerful atmosphere as people from from universities across the UK (and beyond) take the rare opportunity to chat PG.

I'd love for us to be able to take credit for how naturally this kind of networking comes at our events. But really, I think it's down to the attendees. Maybe it's the fact that the inherent dynamism of PG means everyone is always a little bit 'new to this'. Maybe we all recognise how important this work is, at the cutting edge of research and training. Maybe PG people are just nice. Either way, the atmosphere definitely is and I enjoy it for a little while before heading off to get things started.

11am

My keynote on Postgraduate Audiences & the Eras Tour comes to a close, having explored some of the key issues facing PG students (and marketers) over the past decade or so. A clear theme is that there's very little new under the sun for postgraduate – as a selection of influential figures variously introduce, ignore and remove different student finance and post-study work visa options. I observe (as I never would in a blog post) that this is something of a rogue's gallery. It is, however, the only presentation on PG data I'm aware of that includes pictures of Michelle Donelan and Taylor Swift. So there's that.

The biggest takeaways from my point of view are the changing shape of the UK domestic cohort as well as the diversity of audiences for international (both of which I've just written about in more detail).

It's now time for the conference to split into tracks for experienced PG professionals and those newer to this part of the sector. Maree is chairing (and about to present on) the second track and I head to compere the other.

11.30am

I feel seen. Paddy Moogan's session on What Got You Here Won't Get You There: Why Most Postgraduate Managers Are Destined to Fail and How to Avoid Being One of Them has mixed his own experience working at universities with some relevant management theory to reflect on the typical professional journey people take as they get more senior.

One of the key points of advice is accountibility and the need to do the things you say you'll do. Like, for example, writing a proper conference report instead of a stream-of-consciousness-pseudo-diary. I ask a question myself, reflect on the answer and decide to set myself more sensible deadlines in future.

Paddy's finished early enough that I can nip into the other session, where Maree is coming in to land after her Willy-Wonka-Themed 101 on PG audiences (There is No Life I Know to Compare With PG Education). I'm biased, but even the five minutes of conclusion I see make it clear she's the right person to be talking about this topic: one grounded in her leadership of a Student Engagement team that guides vast and diverse audiences through the vast and diverse world of PG study. She gets a great round of applause and people will continue to call back to her session throughout the day.

12.30pm

Maree and I have just finished our second session of the day (and first together) a workshop on use cases for AI in PG marketing and recruitment. We've shown off some of the things FAU are experimenting with around data forecasting and repurposing content in different formats, before flipping the session to gather thoughts and feedback.

This does mean we've both missed the session delivered by our hosts as Havas, who've ably chaired themselves (this is, after all, their building... and their chairs). It looks like they've had plenty of participation (I see flipchart paper in use!) whilst presenting new research on Two Audiences, One Goal: How to Communicate to Decided and Undecided Postgraduate Students.

1.45pm

Ewan Fairweather of The University of Edinburgh has just given the kind of presentation on postgraduate student funding (Are You Loan-Some Tonight) that I've always wanted to. He's said many of the things I often do about the utter inadequacy of the UK postgraduate student loan offer (and a few others besides) but pulled far fewer punches than I might in observing the somewhat disingenuous nature of university websites that fall back on scholarships as a realistic funding solution.

Instead, Ewan's suggested we all be a lot more honest about the reality of funding and become a lot more helpful (and potentially engaging) as a result. It's a rallying cry and I want to run up and high-five him. I settle for enthusiastic applause.

On the other track, Christian Ward of The University of Manchester has apparently just been equally compelling in Making Sense of Postgraduate Research Marketing. A very experienced colleague who is definitely not called Andy refers to it as 'the best PGR marketing talk I've ever seen'. I take his word for it.

3pm

The final parallel session has just finished. I'm gutted to have missed Matt Horne of Newcastle University explaining how to Unhinge the Cosy Core and All Hail the Swiftie – Sharing the Secrets to Taking on TikTok. It's not just because of the Taylor Swift references, or the alliteration, either; Matt is a brilliant speaker and excellent on PG social media – something that's just been confirmed by the conversations I've overheard with coffee.

However, I have had the chance to compere Jonny Williams of Red Hat in a slightly different session: Don't Wait a Year: How You Can Embrace Rapid Change to Drive Continous Improvement. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect going into this. The topic draws on principles from agile software design which I am fairly familiar with (I wear several hats around FAU, although few of them are red) but I wasn't expecting Jonny to relate this so closely to the world of PG; it turns out he's an ex-higher-ed-marketer himself.

Now, for the first time today, I'm sat down purely as an audience member, watching as Maree chairs our Insights From Current and Prospective Postgraduate Students panel. This is a regular fixture at our events, but the changing nature of PG study and audiences means I'm never quite sure what to expect – either in the audience's questions, or the panelists' answers. This time a lot of the focus is on the process of finding and evaluating Masters and (particularly) PhD opportunities, with some interesting perspectives from older students.

4.55pm

I'm down on the floor with the microphone for the last time today as the audience gives a final round of applause – not for me, but for the panelists on our final Postgraduate Campaign Showcase who've been talking about innovative work to expand and encourage postgraduate audiences, on behalf of the University of Southampton, the University of the Arts London and Universities UK.

I sum up my experience of the day in fewer words than I've used here, but with many of the same themes: the need to appreciate the diversity of postgraduate audiences (and be honest with them); the need to combine data and insight with students' lived experience (and our own); and, above all, the value of being able to share and compare our perspectives as people working in the uniquely dynamic and occasionally confusing world of PG.

All that's left is to thank our FAU Events team (which the audience graciously does) to continue the conversation over a drink and to begin the journey home.

Where my wife is presumably wondering why a Taylor Swift t-shirt is waiting for me on the mat.

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