The daily responsibilities of a media trainee can vary greatly depending on the position for which he or she has been hired. In the media industry, a trainee is typically an entry-level employee who is learning more advanced skills in order to become a full-time, self-employed employee. He or she is more likely to specialize in one area of media rather than the entire industry, but regardless of specialization, the media trainee will work under the supervision and guidance of a more experienced employee.
A media trainee may specialize in areas such as advertising, marketing, or production, including sound, film, graphic design, and more. This employee will typically not be given too many complex tasks as a trainee, but as his or her training progresses, the media trainee will be given more and more complex tasks to work on, always under the supervision of a more experienced employee. The trainee will rarely, if ever, perform any tasks without the presence of an immediate supervisor to supervise the work. The length of the traineeship is determined by the job’s complexity as well as the trainee’s background and education.
In some cases, the terms “trainee” and “apprentice” are interchangeable, but in others, a media trainee is a lower-level position where he or she can prepare for an apprenticeship. Apprenticeships can last for several years, and to become a full-time media professional, the candidate must usually pass a licensing or certification exam at the conclusion of the apprenticeship. Formal and informal traineeships and apprenticeships exist; informal traineeships do not result in any licensing or certification, so the duration and intensity of the traineeship can vary depending on the supervisor’s assessment of the media trainee’s progress.
Although all media trainee positions will focus on some aspect of the industry, some traineeships may not be related to media at all. A trainee in accounting, for example, will concentrate on accounting techniques that can be applied to other industries; a trainee in law, on the other hand, will concentrate on learning about the various laws governing media in a specific country or even around the world. The majority of trainee positions, on the other hand, will be more directly related to the creation and management of various types of media, ranging from sound and visual engineering to marketing and advertising trainee positions.