Apprentice Technician Review

My role involved meeting weekly with my line manager to discuss my progress, whether there was anything that week I had learnt, or had discovered and wanted to learn more about. My responsibilities within the workplace were to, following the guidance of my colleagues, offer remote support to end users via telephone and email. often ending with me passing them on to one of my colleagues at the beginning, but by the end I was working to the standard of my peers.

I have been provided with many new skills from this apprenticeship, which have lead to me being able to go on to have a full time job elsewhere, earning just under 20,000 per year. I've also walked away with qualifications relating to networking, security and it systems.

I did enjoy my program, the learning I did was great there and I'm glad I did it for the job I'm in now. The courses were well structured and easily digestable, my line manager was a dream in assisting my progress.

My manager appreciated me greatly as he could see how hard I was trying to take everything on board that he or the team gave me. This was relayed to me verbally and my manager became confident enough to leave me to my own devices more often, and allowed me to begin to lead small projects. Offering me some very valuable management experience.

The structure of the programme was great. My manager was very eager to sit down with me to discuss progress whenever we needed it. The only thing I struggled with was as I was getting more comfortable and knowledgeable in the role, I wasn't sure where I fell in the team, and they weren't sure either so I stayed "the apprentice" in some of their eyes, whereas some could see my progress and treated me appropriately for my skill level.

My advisor was very helpful, especially when there was a change over between them due to my first finding a new job. They were both very hands on with ensuring nothing got left behind or forgotten about due to the change of hands. I thoroughly enjoyed my training and the support from them put me at ease with my assignments.

Support from my manager and my team was very strong throughout, but HR was a nightmare to work with sometimes. I had a couple issues with payments and expenses I were told would be covered but they wouldn't pay out for, but that was okay I guess.

My salary was okay, not wonderful but I got by reasonably alright. My parents were very understanding and although I wanted to pay my way in the house, I couldn't offer a huge amount, but I paid enough to feel I was helping with bills and everything else.

There weren't many opportunities to socialise with staff outside of work, I couldn't attend the christmas do because I was only 17 at the time. We often received emails for events that were being held by our closest office nearby, but the events were always held too far away to make it worth us going.

Yes

Because they did take care of me, and although I was angry about my issues with HR, I realise this is very common within most workplaces. When I look back to my time in my apprenticeship, I think fondly of how it allowed me to grow as a person and progress my career further.

The greatest advice I can give that worked for me with my application, is to be yourself. Sure this is a big thing and it's a big part of life to go out and work, but don't take it too seriously, crack a joke in your interview, you wont get shot for it. If you're too uptight, you'll either seem boring, or overly nervous.