Hamish Blake labels work experience in media a ‘joke’

Hamish Blake said work experience is more about being “cool” than learning the craft of radio while appearing on the latest episode of Jack Post’s popular Jacky Road Studios podcast.

“Work experience is vanity, it was a joke. It doesn’t really give you a taste of a career,” he said. “Every week [in radio] you get someone going, ‘I’m interested in radio or I’m interested in TV’.

“You are not going to come up with a concept for a new radio or TV show. You are not actually going to do the work that you would experience in a radio station.”

Blake told Post he believes students would be better off without work experience, especially those from privileged backgrounds who often lean on family connections for placement.

“They should scrap work experience at school, especially private schools,” he said, suggesting students should have to go and “pick fruit” or “dig holes” in the western suburbs.

“You will probably go to uni and get sucked into the system where you will end up in the position where there are people under you doing much harder work, for much less money.

“So to understand the world a bit, you should go and do the shittiest job you can and actually earn a salary that week and go ‘this is what it takes to earn $28 an hour’.”

Watch the full episode of the Jacky Road Studios podcast below.