Prajul Vishnu KL, an international student from India, shares his experience of working as a Workforce Support Volunteer at the Eurovision Song Contest 2023.
My name is Prajul Vishnu KL. I am pursuing a postgraduate degree in MSc Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, which is a one-year programme in the University of Liverpool Management School.
I got involved with Eurovision Song Contest by volunteering as a Workforce Support Volunteer. My responsibilities included welcoming the Eurovision staff and other volunteers to the venue. On every shift, I was also responsible for providing daily information to people, along with handing out meal tokens and reward items when required.
I also assisted with scheduling and rostering questions, as well as assisting with other general workforce duties. Along with my teammates we tried to create a welcoming, happy and motivating atmosphere for all the other volunteers.
I found out about this volunteering opportunity through an email that was sent out by the Careers and Employability team sometime in early January. After I saw the role, I applied for it and there was no looking back!
The best thing about volunteering at the Eurovision Song Contest was working and collaborating with people from various nations, ages, and experiences. I was welcomed by all my colleagues, which helped me feel at home, and as everyone so friendly it was also easy to break the ice with the others and smoothly work with them.
Volunteering at Eurovision has been a really beneficial experience. The cross-cultural collaboration and leadership skills that I have gained have been the most helpful for me from an employability perspective, and the top skills that I have picked from this volunteering role is coordination, communication and customer-service.
Volunteering at a large-scale event like Eurovision requires one to communicate effectively with other lots of team members, like volunteers, event staff, and performers. It also provided me with an opportunity to work in a team by collaborating with others towards achieving a common goal. As a volunteer, we are often the first point of contact for visitors, and creating a positive experience for everyone at the event was a major priority which has helped me develop and improve my customer service skills.
I would recommend volunteering to other students as a way of gaining work experience!
Networking is a crucial part of finding opportunities. Talk to your professors, career coaches, and alumni network to see if they know of any opportunities that might be a good fit for you.
Find your opportunity
The Guild Volunteering Service can help you find the right charity or organisation for you – they work with hundreds so you will have plenty of opportunity to make a difference in an area you care about.
- Check out the volunteering section of the Guild website
- Get signed up as a Student Volunteer
- Find your perfect opportunity
If you want to find out more or need any extra support with your applications the Guild Volunteering Team are available to help. Just get in touch at guildvol@liverpool.ac.uk.