The Administration & Production intern has become an essential part of the Third Angel machinery. We established this role in 2015 in response to the fact that there were a growing number of development opportunities for aspiring artists and performers, but very few paid opportunities for the next generation of arts managers to hone their skills. The initiative has been so successful that we are now looking to recruit our fourth intern and we’re keen to hear from anyone in the early stages of their arts management career about how this opportunity could help them achieve their aims.
The Administration & Production Assistant (to give them their proper title) works with our General Manager and Executive Producer on every aspect of running a small touring theatre company, from office management to marketing, from creative learning workshops to tour logistics, and everything in between. You’ll spend most of your time at the company office in Sheffield, but there will also be occasional opportunities to assist in the delivery of workshops, work with the creative team in rehearsal, and visit productions on the road.
We want you to leave us as prepared as possible to fly solo as an administrator or assistant producer, so we’ll agree a training schedule with you to build your skills and anticipate your future needs around business management, fundraising, marketing and project management.
This is what Sarah Webb, our current intern, has to say about the position:
“I’m Sarah, and I’m the lucky individual who was chosen to become Third Angel’s Admin & Production Assistant back in Summer 2017. This blog post would have reached you all sooner, but they’ve kept me busy. I’m the third round of the internship scheme; you might say I’m the ‘Third Angel’ (har har), though I’ve had two stellar predecessors, Liz & Ellie, who set the bar high for me and have moved on to pursue exciting careers.
“I clearly remember writing my application for the post and passionately thanking Third Angel for offering such a valuable and rare opportunity for young professionals to explore arts administration and production within a thriving company – fast forward to my last few months with the team and my thankfulness is through the roof. At the core, Third Angel is a small theatre company with just five employees (I’m the only full-time member of staff), but you wouldn’t guess that by looking at the number of projects we’re working on at any one time. Working in a small team makes for a rich experience and I’ve gained and developed an unbelievable multitude of skills. For those of you looking to find out what a normal day in the office might look like, I hate to burst that balloon, but there’s no such thing. Every day is different, and I am continuously working on new and exciting challenges. The next intern will have a completely different experience to me and that’s what makes this opportunity so exciting.”
There are two changes with this round of the internship, firstly we have extended the length of the post to 18 months to enable the postholder to experience a full annual business cycle and get opportunity to do some tasks more than once. Secondly, we’re currently advertising the post as 4 days per week, but we are actively seeking funding to extend this to full time (35 hours per week). The post is paid at Living Wage Foundation rates.
If you’re considering an application, here’s a few helpful tips to get you started:
- Remember that we have had over 60 applications on previous occasions, anyone who cannot show that they meet EVERY ONE of the essential criteria is very unlikely to be shortlisted.
- Make sure you have taken time to tell us HOW you meet each one of the points of the essential criteria, and as many of the desirable criteria you can – give examples. Don’t assume that this will be obvious to us from reading your employment or education history, make it absolutely clear. However, there is no need to write pages and pages – bullet points and concise sentences are much more effective, especially when we have lots of applications to look at.
- Where we have asked for specific experience, we mean this in the broadest sense, not just employment experience. You could use examples from your hobbies, voluntary work, social life, family or school / college / university to demonstrate that you understand what skills are likely to be needed and have dipped your toe in.
- Attention to detail is important, as it is our first indication that you have got what it takes to do the job! Use a spell check, make sure you have completed ALL the required forms, follow the instructions to the letter!
The closing date for applications is 2pm on Friday 1st February and interviews will be held on Tuesday 19th February. Unfortunately, we’re unable to be flexible on the interview date so please ensure you would be able to attend on that date. We’re hoping that the new intern would be able to start with us in the last week of March to allow handover whilst Sarah is still with us.
You can download the application pack here. If you have any questions please email us on mail@thirdangel.co.uk or if it would be helpful to have an informal chat you can call us on 0114 274 4974 and ask for Laura (our General Manager) or Hilary (Executive Producer).