Executive Officer Review

I currently work in the financial accounting team in the department for education. My role consists of reviewing the departments fixed assets and ensuring that the correct accounting treatment has been used. I also get involved in the departments audits and carry out my teams admin duties ensuring we have team meetings in place and that the right people are informed and sent an agenda.

I have now passed 4 out of 5 of my CIMA certificate exams with my last one coming up in June. I have been on many face to face and online courses of my choice to fill any gaps I feel I have in my development. I also have a lot of in house training on a varied amount of taks and have managed to develop my skills in many areas such as Microsoft excel, business comms, communication, leadership and the list goes on and on

The programme has exceeded my expectations and there is a very warm culture within my department. I have made many friends as well as colleagues allowing me to be able to approach anybody in my team to ask for help or even for advice on what I should be doing going forward to get to where I want to be

I feel very valued within the civil service through regular catch ups with my line and task managers I am told what I am doing well and were I can improve. 360 feedback every 6 months allows me to receive feedback form external as well as internal stakeholders

I feel the programme has improved over my time here and due to being the first intake of finance apprentices there was a few problems however these have been reported to the central team and there seems to be better organisation . We had some very good inductions when joining the programme and we are allowed time to study and meet up with an external mentor. this has been a great benefit for me

I have telephone assessments and meet face to face with my assessor every 6 weeks. I feel this is sufficient. I also have a lot of confidence in the tutors at Kaplan who offer all there help in classes and even in there own time to make sure that we get through the exams

I have receive all the support I ask for from my employer. This is not just the apprenticeship team but people within my team are aware of what my apprenticeship is about and offer me help with revision if I am struggling and always look out and let me know about any opportunities I will benefit from.

I have now moved to Manchester into a nice area on Salford Quays. With my wage I have been able to pay my own rent, finance a car and have enough money to enjoy myself on the weekends and go home to see my family

I have got involved in opportunities out of our department such as cross government projects and online training packages which I have helped test. I have also been to the next intakes induction to give my experiences and advice to them.

Yes

Yes I would defiantly recommend this to a friend as it pays well at the same time as getting great opportunities form progression. You can almost pick your own direction and improve the skills you need to

I would say try to get as much job experience as you can before applying even if this is just part time jobs. Be yourself in the interview. Also on the assessment days put yourself forward especially in the group tasks. If I was to apply again I would of researched the civil service more and had preferences of which department and location I would like to work to allow me to have a choice rather than just being put where I was told