James Frew

As a Staff Writer at Fit&Well, I published over 350 stories on fitness, exercise, home workouts, meditation and technology. Some were short-form news posts, others were researched evergreen stories aligned with EEAT standards. In mid-2022, I wrote an opinion story about my daily morning walk which became the site's top-performing article, with over 1 million visitors. I played a critical role in helping the newly-launched site develop into a destination for accessible fitness and wellbeing advice for U.S. and U.K. readers. Across a three-month period, I overhauled the site's top-performing buying guides, including writing, commissioning, and editing SEO-focused updates and associated reviews in line with Future's content strategy. I covered high-priority e-commerce events, including Black Friday and Amazon Prime Day, producing reader-focused deals posts and buying advice.

As MakeUseOf's Buyer's Guide Editor, I had overall responsibility for the site's buying guides, including more than 400 published articles. I was responsible for maintaining scheduled output, story generation, SEO optimisation, and regular updates. As a team of freelancer writers and editors, I developed relationships with freelance writers, reviewers and journalists to generate new ideas, improve coverage, and provide feedback on written submissions pre-publication. I attended and covered major consumer technology events, including CES and IFA.

I worked with the site's Social Media Editor to establish priorities and was I was responsible for content creation and interaction on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to an audience of over 600,000.

Across half a decade, my work in technology services journalism as a freelance journalist led to over 300 published stories across international sites like MakeUseOf, Lifewire, Family Handyman, and Blocks Decoded (a now defunct publication about cryptocurrency and blockchain). In some cases, I had a long-standing relationship with editors at these sites, who would approach me with story ideas but many of the articles I published in this time were pitched to specific editors, sections or sites. I developed these relationships by understanding the needs of the site, the topics they covered, and any house styles, to ensure that the story wasn't a chore to edit and would resonate with the site's audience. I used my skills to also write product reviews for several sites, including MakeUseOf. I joined the publication's reviews team, and would submit 1,000-1,500-word written reviews, alongside video editions to be published on MakeUseOf's YouTube channel and embedded in stories. As this was a remote, freelance position, I worked on these on my own, writing scripts, recording B-Roll and presenting 10-minute segments to the camera. I became comfortable on camera as a presenter and reviewer and gained valuable self-taught videography and photography skills.

I held a regular freelance position as a writer for MakeUseOf's Security and Technology Explained verticals, helping simplify complex topics for a general consumer audience, with actionable advice and clear explanations of technical processes. As part of this relationship, I committed to eight new articles and explainers per month, accepting researched ideas from editors and pitching my own original ideas.

After successfully completing the City & Guilds accredited Section Manager program, I was promoted to the weekend manager of the Electrical & Kitchenware department. I was responsible for a team of 30, seven direct reports, resolution of customer issues, achievement of departmental KPIs and sales targets.

The main priority in this role was to resolve any quality issues in a timely manner, either pre or post-shipment. This included problems with components, including material deformations, labelling, faulty electronics or out of specification parts. I monitored factory yield to assess line failures, and collaborated with the production engineers to resolve temporary manufacturing troubles or implement process improvements. Most issues were not isolated to a single team or area of the business, so I developed reports and analysis to present to the senior leadership team, especially when there were potential safety problems. Although this was a one-year placement as part of my degree, I was trusted and treated like a regular part of the team by my manager and the wider business. I spoke directly to customers and end users, helping to resolve technical issues, even going directly to installation sites to troubleshoot. As part of this role, I leaned and implemented Statistical Process Controls, and worked within lean manufacturing standards. My analysis of returns and commercial data directly led to the company offering a lifetime warranty on its smoke detectors and alarms.

Weekend sales assistant working across multiple departments, including the Stationery section, Haberdashery, and cross-section payment team.