Interested in doing work experience at Shock?

We’re looking for some friendly, excited, happy students (ability to bake is encouraged) who have a genuine interest in the music or DVD industry, to come into the Shock office and help us out. So if you’re currently enrolled at a High School, Tafe or University (for insurance reasons) we’d love to hear from you.

We’re looking to fill spots throughout 2011 but if you’re available in February or March, get in touch right away!

Contact details are at the bottom of the page, but before we get to that it’s time for some inspiration. It’s one man and a story that’s become office legend… Rowan T and “The Journey”.

That’s Rowan (in the classy tweed jacket) with Carmen Electra

And the journey begins…

“I was doing a music business course at RMIT and in my last year as part of that I had to do 350 hours of work experience. I ended up doing work experience at about 5 different places and Shock was one of them. It was probably the easiest place out of them all to get work experience, I just rang up reception and said hey I’m doing a course and I need a couple of weeks. That was in 2006 I’m pretty sure. And for the 2 weeks I did the work experience in the burning room. Just burning CD’s, laminating things and labelling, photocopying, cutting things, all that kind of stuff.”

So that was your foot in the door?

“Yeah. At the end of those 2 weeks, from what I’ve been told, Ian Bennett (Head of International A&R) had mentioned to Sam (Chief Operations Officer) that we needed a label assistant because the label assistant before me was a full time job and there wasn’t enough work. I think the label managers had been struggling to do all the little bits and pieces so Sam approached me and said hey what are you doing, would you be interested in coming in 2 days a week and offered me the label assistant job. So I combined that with what I was doing study wise and work wise outside shock.”

Then what happened?

“I worked for 11 months as a label assistant. I’d given myself 12 months and thought all right, at the end of this I’ve gotta move on but at the 11 month mark a job came up in the promo department. The person who looked after regional radio as well as some publicity stuff and other bits and pieces was leaving. So I was offered the job as a regional radio plugger because at the time I was also working at Nova part time as well. So I’d been working at Shock part time as a label assistant and part time at Nova. The job that they saw me doing in the promo department involved interaction with Nova so I think people around here thought well why not get the label assistant who knows them, he knows us and we’ll have him on.”

And the rest is history? Not quite.

“Nowadays my day to day job title is national promotions manager slash licensing coordinator. But if you break that down the main role I see is servicing our tracks to Nova. Nova’s the main target for us at radio because their music direction of playing new music first is good for us. It’s a good step from triple j. I think of triple j as being our bread and butter, the next step on from that is Nova, to try and get a wide audience that has a foot in new music and a foot in commercial stuff. So my job is to work with the team and decide what songs were going to take. Of the massive catalogue Shock has we need to pick a few priorities to focus on then my job is to make Nova aware of them by having meetings where I’ll tell them how great the song is, explaining the picture that might have developed on a band or track, any chart information and stuff like that. They’re the tools we use to try and get the track away at radio.”

“Then the other part of that is the licensing stuff. Which is fielding requests from other record companies who want to use our songs on compilations. So if Sony are putting out a compilation with a Phoenix track on it, they have to come through us and request it and go through the right channels and then we’ll tick it off and reap the rewards when they sell 50 thousand copies of it. So they’re the 2 main parts of my job.”

And if you didn’t work at Shock?

“Good question, good question, um… (very long pause… ). My family history is a lot of white collar stuff like insurance. A lot of insurance actually when I think about it. Maybe something in finance or real estate probably. Prior to doing the music industry degree I had applied and got into a finance course.”

Any advice for people wanting to get into the music industry?

“I think study’s a good option but it’s certainly not the be all and end all and I don’t think it’s really the reason why I got any of my jobs. I don’t think any of the jobs I’ve had whether its here or short term jobs at other record companies or the radio station or anything else I’ve done like that, I don’t think it’s because of my degree. I think that gets you a little foot in the door but you need to show people that you’re willing to do some hard yards. Whether that be doing some crap jobs or not working for a lot of money or whatever it is. I think the way I describe it to the work experience guys is the degrees a little cherry on top. It might make them look at you more than someone else but it won’t get you a job in this industry. Its not like the finance industry where you can just go and say hey I’ve got a commerce degree and that generally gets you something but its not like that here. I got the job, as I said before, because I was here working as a label assistant.”

The best thing about working at Shock?

“At the risk of sounding like a going away party, the people are a lot of fun. I think the work environment is really cool. It’s not uptight, it’s a very relaxed environment. And getting to listen to new really cool music, before anyone else has even heard it. Sometimes getting a new track by Phoenix or Jamaica or Bloc Party or whatever it is, getting something in a clean skin type CD. A lot of my mates like the kind of music that we’re into and it’s pretty cool being able to go and say “I heard the new whatever when no one else in the country has heard it. So that’s really cool. And I’ve got a great boss, great office and all that.”

So there you have it. This could be you…

If you fancy yourself as the next Rowan T, Emma our super friendly office manager would love to hear from you. Drop her a line on 03 9205 0999 or email info@shock.com.au