Project Management Apprentice Review

I work as a project management apprentice and thus my day-to-day role involves managing projects. So, I plan, estimate, monitor and track projects. I communicate with stakeholders and organise lots of meeting and reviews in relation to the projects with several key stakeholders. I am also a co-creator of the Future VME Community in my department which aims to improve the working envionment in particularly for the next generation of VME employees.

There are severl skills I have managed to learn whilst working here. One of the main ones was presenting as a project manager I have to present progress of projects to higher management and key stakeholders on a regular basis. I have also been set on a mandatory 2 day course in order to improve my presenting skills. I've improved my management and organising skills through my day-to-day role and in particular project management related skills through my work and the APM and Prince2 courses I have attended.

I do enjoy my programme, I find a majority of the work I do to be interesting. My worksplace is very good at giving employees opportunities which I really appreciate and try to make the most of. These include volunteering opportunities, work related training of my choice (we are given a budget to spend on this across the year) and the opportunity to create the FVC and from this start our own projects and complete team building activities.

I believe my work is really well organised as I shadow my line manager and we always have work organised for myself. I fit in my time to complete college related work as and when I see fit, so I do not have an allocataed day to complete my college work unlike some other colleagues.

I receive a great deal of support from my employer. As stated above the opportunities given to me to help myself develop have been great. I can always speak to colleagues with any issues, concerns or problems I may be having and everyone so far has been happy to help. I've even been sent on several courses which were not a requirement in order to help improve my skills as a project manager.

My tutor always offers support, we usualy have a visit every 4 weeks where we discuss the work I have submitted and set work for the next meeting. I haven't really used my tutor for support I have usually been working independently, doing my own research and using the workbooks given to my by my trianing provider.

A lot of the work from my course is directly related to my role as I'm working towards being a project manager and this is what my course is on. I can relate to a lot of the work so far and have managed to use some suggestions to help improve my performance in the workplace.

There are lots of extra-curricular activities to get involved in at work. As discussed im a co-creator of the FVC but we have several clubs at my location. These include the Rec club, the brass band, running club, walking club and the list goes on. MY department do quite a lot of socials and we get together often for charity related events.

Yes

This is because of the great opportunities you are given. It has a great working environment and everyone is friendly and approachable. They will support you to reach your own personal goals (as long as this is work related). In my case for example this was becoming a qualifies Prince2 practitiooner.

I would say is to be yourself and show what you can bring to the organisation. So, how or why would the company benefit from having you as an employee. Make sure you are realistic when it comes to self evaluation of skills as you will be expected to show or prove this once hired (if it is work related). Don't say your experienced on Microsoft Excel if you can't even work the basics for example.