Business Apprentice Review

On a day to day basis I work in an office environment, currently I am working in Manufacturing HR so my role is very adhoc and duties can range anything from supporting activities from a people perspective to advising on policy or investigating behaviour within the business. This has varied over the 2 years as we rotate placements every 20 weeks. This is my second out of 4 placements so far in HR.

I have developed my people skills by simply being thrown in to this type of work in HR as it is very people focused. The company relies on Skype quite a lot so developing confidence for speaking over the phone is a big factor I have noticed. But also in face to face interactions, as we are encouraged to meet for meetings wherever possible.

I enjoy the work aspect of the programme but the qualification side has been nothing but added stress since we came in as the company decided to change the qualification within our first 6 months entering the business which meant much of the work we were doing initially wasn't tailored to the qualification that we are now working towards so it is frustrating each time we did an off the job session where we knew it wasn't mapped against our standard. Placement work is enjoyable because you feel like you are contributing

Again, in terms of placements. My placement manager is very well organised and takes on board my own preferences which is really nice however I know that others on the same scheme have trouble understanding whether they are coming or going. With the qualification, as I have mentioned above it has not been well organised at all until about a month ago when the new assessors came in with knowledge on the standard, before that it was very much up in the air and no clear guidance because the business was so new to the qualification.

In terms of support the business is always happy to put support in place which is great. I feel comfortable speaking to any of my managers if I have any queries and even sometimes when the person I am speaking to doesn't know the answer, you can guarantee that they will point you in the right direction.

As mentioned, this has been difficult to consider because of the fact that our qualification has been changed mid way through our apprenticeship. This therefore means that there isn't much resource material for us to use as reference for our revision, however they do keep reassuring us that everything will pay off, I think there is an overall lack of confidence from my year group though.

Our training comes from BAE Systems itself and we are taught from internal assessors. Initially we didn't feel confident what so ever that we would be successful because the way the off the job sessions were structured and the content we was learning didn't apply to any qualification until about 6 months ago. Now we have 2 new assessors who have background knowledge on the business standard and are working at mapping our assignment work and revision against the actual qualification which is good however, we do have a lot of work to back track on.

There are many professional networking events that you can get involved in to broaden your contacts. There is also things like LGBTQ+ (Outlink) and Inspiring Women which are support groups that are available for people to join and educate themselves on. As part of national apprenticeship week there is opportunity to take part in sporting activities for charity but as far as I'm aware there isn't any year round sports teams (this might be a nice idea)

Yes

I would recommend it to a friend because the business is very supportive with you as an individual be it in terms of work life balance, mental health or progression to name a few, it has all sorts of benefits like a competitive salary, good pension scheme, share scheme etc but I do worry that once you are in the business it is a very particular place with a very prominent culture so I would always offer some advice from my experience of what day to day work life can be like before I pushed anyone in to applying.

Try and be as confident and charismatic as possible in your interview, the more knowledge you have of inside the business the better but do not just relay all the information you can find on the BAE website, try do some wider research. Try and workout whether or not you have a passion for the industry as well as this will drive your ability to put in 100%. Also look at understanding what different areas of the business you might be best suited to. When I came in to the business I wasn't sure what 'business' area I wanted to go in to or even know what areas there was on offer (Project Management, Commercial, Procurement, HR, Quality, for example)which meant I felt a little bit out of my depth for the first few months as I couldn't understand where I felt I belonged (the business will help you find your place in the company) but I would recommend looking at other corporate companies and what contributes to the wider picture so you can mention what you feel you relate to in your interview and be allocated an area you can flourish in!