Visual Culture

Susannah Johnson
BA (Hons) Visual Culture

When I left university I needed a job to start repaying my debts and started temping with an agency. I was placed with a company who needed a credit controller and my previous retail experience was seen as advantageous in terms of dealing with customers. I followed this career path as I became quite successful at the job.

I am currently employed as a Credit Controller at a leading independent firm of chartered accountants and business advisers. I have been working there for just over 3 and half years. My role involves working with the partners, managers and clients of the firm to ensure the timely collection of invoice payments. Although the position is not as creative as I would like, I do enjoy managing my own portfolio of clients, and working with them to resolve queries and payment issues.

The sacrifice I made by following this career path was to give up attempting to break into what I really wanted to do, which was go into the editorial/ publishing area. I grew to rely on the money I was making which made it extremely difficult to then take a salary cut and go back to a junior role. Unfortunately I feel the longer I pigeon hole myself within a finance based job, the further away I am from the field I originally studied in.

In the future I would like to go back to university to study for an MA in order to change my career.