Meet Samantha Wells | Graphic Designer & Founder

We had the good fortune of connecting with Samantha Wells and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Samantha, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
Over the years, people have told me I’m a bit of a unicorn in the creative industry. I don’t have a rainbow tail (or a horn!), but I have been working for the same company for over 15 years, and in this industry, that’s pretty much unheard of.
At university, we were always told it was ‘the done thing’ to move company every 2 years in order to climb the salary ladder and gain ‘valuable work experience’. But my experience of working with a talented, friendly, and supportive team of creative people and having the trust of my bosses to interact with and manage clients directly, has been incredibly valuable and enabled me to push myself out of my comfort zone and become the Graphic Designer and the person I am today.

When we had a redundancy scare at work, it made me wonder what I would do if I were to lose my job. Would I seek out a similar role elsewhere? Or would I switch it up a bit and find a new challenge? Luckily, everything worked out and there were no redundancies after all. But the intrigue remained, and I started to ponder what sort of projects I would like to get involved in if I could create them myself.

The lightbulb moment came when our two new junior designers shared that if they hadn’t been offered full-time jobs at our studio at the end of their (paid) internships – they would have been forced to give up on their dreams of becoming designers because they simply couldn’t afford to intern anymore. This shocked me, as I could not imagine either of them doing anything but design. Their talent, hard work, enthusiasm, and investment in their degrees would have been totally wasted. All because of something as cold as money.

Part of my role for the last 8-9 years has been to find, interview, and mentor interns and junior designers who have come to work at our studio. This role has given me first-hand insight into how students and graduates struggle to get their foot in the industry door, how the education system can be hit and miss when it comes to preparing young people for the world of work, and how tricky it is for small businesses like ours to connect with fresh talent.

When the Covid lockdown hit (and I suddenly got my 3 hours of commuting time back) I decided to take action and set about creating a platform where emerging talent, educators, and employers could connect and try to tackle some of the barriers that discriminate and prohibit access to our fantastic industry.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Tern Heads is a ‘Profit For Purpose’ career coaching platform dedicated to helping entry-level creatives brush up on their employability skills & connect with potential employers.

We want to approach creative recruitment differently, by making it easier, and more affordable for businesses to attract & hire the right candidates for them while reinvesting in career management training for emerging creatives.

We aim to remove barriers such as:

Exposure:
By providing a platform dedicated to entry-level portfolios and recruitment opportunities.

Network Reach:
By hosting forums, events, profiles, and workshops, enabling members to interact and connect with each other on demand.

Appropriate skills:
By collaborating with employers in a range of sectors to understand what skills are required.

Resources:
By keeping prices down and accessibility and interactivity high for all our members.

Accessibility:
By banning the advertisement of unpaid internships and job offers on our site (All roles must pay at least the National Minimum Wage)

Locality:
By hosting most of our content online to ensure members can access help and advice wherever they are.

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As a platform, we want to be the community of peers that catches you as you exit the support of the education system and start to comprehend taking your first steps into the creative workplace.

Our content dives into the nitty gritty of what it’s really like to make a living as a creative person in different sectors, and provides relatable, actionable steps that students and graduates can take to boost their confidence, find suitable roles, network, and bring their portfolio’s up to scratch.

We collaborate with creative businesses and working professionals to understand the skills gaps, recruitment pipelines, and quality candidates that they want to see knocking on their doors and help them to promote their company to fresh talent all year round.

Our membership and sponsorship pricing structure keeps recruitment fees low, while enabling businesses to give something back to the next generation of creatives as a portion of all membership income gets re-invested into employability workshops and events.

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Setting up Tern Heads’ has been a HUGE undertaking. Since deciding to take the plunge and launch the platform, I have had covid, planned a wedding, got married, and maintained productivity in my full-time design job.

There is no way I would have gotten this far without the people mentioned in the Shoutout section of this article or without the support of my employers at Pemberton & Whitefoord LLP.
My goal for the future is to collaborate with even more inspiring people, get more creative graduates into their dream jobs, and to make the recruitment process for businesses much easier, cheaper, and fairer.

At the moment, the roadmap from the education system into the working world seems a little disjointed and unfortunately sometimes boils down to the wealthiest candidates succeeding – rather than the most talented. I want to open up the lines of communication between educators, candidates, and employers, share as many career journey stories as possible, introduce more diverse role models, pull back the curtain on job roles, and stop the biggest barrier for so many young creatives – unpaid, undervalued work.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
The amount of kindness, time, support, and mentorship I have experienced since starting this venture has been absolutely awe inspiring and confirmed in my heart that this industry and the people who work within it are the best in the world. Some of the random creatives I messaged on LinkedIn back in early 2020 are now lifelong friends and even came to my wedding!
I still have a long way to go in my entrepreneurial journey, but I never would have got this far without my husband Martin, the wonderful Wendy Mubaiwa, Kieron Lewis, Paul Butler, Robin Auld, and Albert Mensah. All of whom have shared their wisdom and network with me, collaborated on content and strategy, and picked me up during waves of imposter syndrome and self-doubt.

Website: https://ternheads.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ternheads/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/23684583

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TernHeads

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ternheads

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4YWYlzN9yvk6_J-Tygm75Q/featured/videos

Other: Eventbrite Profile: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/tern-heads-33144572211