Project manager Review

I work as a Junior Project Manager learning under a senior project manager. The aim is to give me a complete overview of the project life cycle, from the project initiation, creating designs, securing funding to the build and delivery of the project. This involves document creation (reports, spreadsheets etc), lots of meetings liasing with relevant parties to overcome blockers and progress the project, tracking project progress against key milestones, reporting regularly on progress and more.

I've learned a lot of new skills. Both my day to day role and the apprenticeship specific training has given me a lot of exposure to more technical topics than I had encountered before (detailed scaled networking, infrastructure, coding etc). I've learned a lot of people managing skills, how to communicate more effectively, how to deal with pressures from senior colleagues, time management skills etc.

The programme has been a lot of fun, my job role in particular has been a great experience. I've learned a lot about the project management world and will be keen to continue within this field and further develop my skills. The apprenticeship training mostly complimented my job, exposing me to technical aspects which I would deal with on my job. Together this proved useful to get my head around how certain technologies work. A small portion of the apprentice content was dull and repetitive, there was a lot of 'core skills' style learning to do with communicating, feedback etc which felt very juvenile and sadly we had to complete this all too regularly.

The structure had a rocky start as my company changed apprentice providers but once it got running it established a fairly good structure. Generally you could expect to have one training session/topic to attend and complete each month. The workload never became too much to juggle with day yo day work and my employer always allocated more than enough time to complete it. As stated above though, the content choice could be streamlined so that you aren't submitted duplicate work over the 2 years, this didn't feel like a good use of time.

The employer was the best part of the apprenticeship, they provided more than enough support to make sure you had the time/skills to complete any apprentice programme specific work. They were very accommodating when taking time off to go off site for apprentice specific training and there was never any clashes between the company and the apprentice provider.

The support varied, generally it was fine however some content felt like it was designed without the learner in mind. A small portion of work didn't feel very useful to have to submit to begin with but then the assignments designed to meet this content felt almost deliberately awkward to complete.

There were some good courses that taught you a lot about certain technologies and it was these topics that a lot of u dealt with or were at least aware of in our job role. These were really useful to compliment what we learned in the job and form a clear picture of how these technologies were used in the industry but also how we as a company utilised them.

At my company (RBS) there's a huge amount of extra curricular activities to get involved with. The company has a very forward thinking culture of inclusiveness and balance for work/life. There's a lot of communication tools within the bank which are not limited to just your team/department/location but the entire company and its very easy to join in with different groups.

Yes

The company has a very modern culture with a focus on well being and inclusiveness. There's lots of support for development and progression and being such a large company, many different areas to get involved in. As mentioned above, it has a great community feel to it and the facilities etc are also great.

Get involved with as much as possible, there is a lot of opportunity so try to avoid saying no to anything, get out your comfort zone and try as much as you can. You'll learn a lot more that way and its a great company for recognising this kind of enthusiasm.