IT Apprentice - Associate Project Manager Review

Currently supporting the senior IT project manager for a large finance project. I am being given lots of meaningful work and there is always good balance of challenge and support. I am responsible for driving the end to end service model for the project along with other related tasks which give me lots of opportunities to learn and practice.

As an IT apprentice, we are asked to rotate every eight months to gain knowledge and experience in different areas of the business. So far I had 3 different rotations and in my current role as an associate PM, I wanted to improve was my time management skills as well as my leadership skills. I can confidently say that I have made a good progress in both areas.

I have been a stay home mum before joining the apprentice scheme. It gave me the most amazing opportunity to kick start my career. Gaining a degree as well as four years work experience was more than what I could dream for. I love the work culture and the support provided within AstraZeneca. Everyone is trying to help you succeed.

I would say very structured. We have an HR early talent partner who is always there to provide support and answer any questions we may have. She catches up with us on regular basis to ensure we are all ok and answer any questions we may have. We also have apprentices from previous years as well as a buddy and a mentor assigned to us.

I had work experience before becoming an apprentice, therefore I was not expecting the amount of support we currently have. Our managers are quite flexible during assignment times so that we have time to work on them during business hours and our programme is very supportive of this. As I get very little time at home, this helped me to successfully complete my assignments.

We have a tutor that visit us every three months to monitor our progress and provide support if needed. We have face to face learning opportunity once a week and also have lab sessions to practice we learn in classes. Some lectures are also recorded which has been very helpful.

I find the subjects we learn very interesting and engaging. As we have the opportunity rotate every eight months, we can also choose a rotation according to what we learn to be able to practice and improve our learnings further. In my current role, having project management lectures certainly helped me to understand best practices for project management.

Yes . As IT apprentices we are always involved in many charity and STEM activities. We are always encouraged to attend activities where we have the opportunity to present our company through the events mentioned above or some tech demo events or advertising our apprenticeship programme. Last year a group of us did Skydiving to raise money for a charity organisation which was a lot of fun.

Yes

Having to work for several large companies in the past, I can certainly say that it has a great work culture, very diverse and they are very supportive of their apprentices. The apprentices have the opportunity to rotate in different business areas before they can decide where they would like to be for their permanent role which I think is a huge bonus.

AstraZeneca values team work and encourages diversity. My tip would be, be yourself and show interest for company's values. I would also recommend preparing well for the application by doing your homework which you would do for any job interview. In short, be yourself and show that you are a team player.