Residential field service engineer Review

I work from 8 until 7pm 3 days a week and 8 whilst 4 for one day traveling to customer homes to identify and fix faults or install new services such as broadband TV or telephone services. I generally visit up to 13 customers a day depending on the length of time for the jobs allocated

I have learnt lots of new skills whilst on my apprenticeship, not only technical but also social skills and customer service skills such as the powers of persuasion. In the first few months whilst visiting virgin media's training facility I learnt mostly technical skills which I them developed when put working alone in the field.

The few month of the apprenticeship was not well organised and left me sitting in my red shed for hours with no work to complete. I did not meet my tutor for atleast 5 months, by which time I was behind with coursework as I did not know what needed to be completed. I met my mentor several times after this but left feeling more confused than confiedent as he did not explain what was required simply enough.

As mentioned previously, the apprentice programme when I first started was not organised well at all. I was left sat around with no work to complete and even when I eventually was told what was required of me it was made simple to the point I had to speak to several other people to try find information out.

My employer was very supportive and offered lots of help and advise when I was struggling. However the apprentice company GKA were very unhelpful and it seemed as though no one was very sure who was in charge of the program. I had to contact several managers to get infotmation that should have been easy to get. I have given 10 stars, but this is purely related to my employer, not GKA

I felt that my mentor was under a lot of pressure and was assisting too many students meaning that he could not provide fast enough feedback on coursework. On several occasions I was left waiting for up to 4 weeks for feedback on work. Towards the end of my apprenticeship when my deadline was due I was informed that my mentor had been given holiday for 2 weeks which I don't think is acceptable when so many people were relying on feedback from him

Overall I feel that the apprenticeship has allowed me to develop my skills for he role I am now doing to a level that is much higher than if I joined the company as a fresh new starter. However I think this is mainly due to working alongside another technician and also working alone at 25%, 5O%, 75% then 100%. I do not feel that the content of the apprenticeship coursework has aided my development at all.

There are not many extra curricular activities to get involved in at my work, however we have staff parties for Christmas and at the end of quarters if our team has done well in performance statistics. These have included going to the York races and meals at nice restarants around Leeds

Yes

I feel that the hours are long, but go quickly as you spend a lot of time driving to jobs and then working on them. The 3 week rotating shift pattern is nice as I get tome off during the week to get jobs done and see my family. The skills I have learnt whilst working for he company will aid me in the future if I decide the move on or into a different role within the company

I would advise that anyone looking to apply to virgin media should read the company values and try to apply them to your own personaloty. Have a positive mental attitude to working with customers is a must as this will impact the customers mood as well as those around you