Commercial Apprentice Review

The scheme offered by Nestle gives me the opportunity to continuously meet new people and take part in new challenges and adventures. Every day I learn new things and currently doing my sales rotation, I am getting a priceless insight into business to business transactions. Additionally, I have taken on a project evaluating our activation within my retailer which has taught me so many new skills that I hope to transfer into my future placements.

My current role has really stretched and challenged my time management and organisation skills, working to tight deadlines. I have attended multiple internal training courses, most recently a two day one on digital marketing techniques which helped me develop skills in a field I had no previous knowledge.

The culture within the office and the atmosphere of the colleagues is amazing. You are constantly encouraged to question and challenge everything which helps you get a real understanding of why not just what. It far exceeded my expectations and I feel very at-home at Nestle.

The emphasis put on the how as well as the what makes the whole evaluation process feel very personal. Being stretched and challenged shows me my team and manager believe in me and that I am capable of taking on challenges beyond my current remit.

The structure of our week releases to university is very well organised as well as the induction week I attended in the September before I started. I have a mentor more senior in the company as well as a buddy who is a year ahead of me on the scheme. The regular meetings with different people allow me to ask any questions and clearly understand everything.

Our studying is done in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University (SHU). SHU provide us with brilliant distance learning support and our tutors reply to emails regularly to give us as much support as necessary. Personally, I had access arrangements at a level and the student support team were excellent in helping me transition this to university life and study.

The mentor and buddy systems in place allow for lots of support. Having a mentor senior in the business gives help from someone with lots of knowledge and experience. My buddy is someone also on the scheme but further along so she is able to help me with specific questions related to the work-study balance and university side of things. On top of this, each function has an academy champion, the sales academy champ meets with me once every couple of moths just to check in and see how I'm getting on and acts as a great impartial aid when I have questions or a problem.

My salary covers my living and travel as I am fortunate to still live at home and be close to the office. It allows me to live a happy and full life although I do still have the need to budget for bigger expenses like car insurance to ensure I have enough when it comes up for renewal. However, due to the location, the cost of renting is higher than most places so I'm not sure I could afford to move out and rent anytime soon.

I haven't personally been very involved with much outside of work but I know their are meet ups at a pub in Clapham Junction. Additionally there is a gym on site that offer classes and free membership. Many charity events are run both inside and outside of the office too, such as a recent Quiz Night.

Yes

I love it! Simple as that

Be yourself, be honest, be willing to learn. Its not about having the countries best grades or being the biggest personality; its about being true to yourself and showing what you have to offer. A real benefit of Nestles application process is that it is strength based rather than experience so it doesn't matter if you haven't won awards or seen the world. Instead it is about getting to know about the business and the industry it operates within to demonstrate how skills you have and may have shown could benefit Nestle.