Marketing Performance and Strategy Manager Review

Currently have rolled off the programme into my first permanent role in the marketing team. I am building out a master performance base that will include data from all of our marketing campaigns and each product - the master base will then be able to automatically populate a number of reports based on the data that has been fed in. Whilst this has been the majority of my role so far going forward my role will be looking at the strategy that we use in marketing in the future to optimise budets and impressions.

Throughout the programme I have learnt numerous different skills and without being on the apprenticeship programme I would not have been able to secure the role that I have. I have gained experience in management and leadership and managing stakeholders, gained a CMgr Charter Manager status alongside my degree. Most recently I have significantly improved my skills in excel and powerpoint in order to deliver key messages to higher leadership and key stakeholders and completed in depth reports.

I think the programme itself is not necessarily enjoyable as it is a lot of hard work, dedication and a lot of sacrifice in order to ensure coursework is completed on time. It was essentially keeping two full time jobs (a full time job and full time uni) which was a tricky workload to balance. As within the programme I worked in different locations some teams were more welcoming than others, and sometimes members of the team were not respectful or understanding of the programme. However the complete opposite could be said for other teams.

From the degree studies point of view there was a lot of support from [This section of the comment has been removed by a member of the RateMyApprenticeship Team because it did not meet our site terms and conditions] regular meetings with tutors and well organised study blocks. From the Barclays perspective it was not well organised until the last year of my programme where they began the internal apprentice coaches which were fantastic and gave line managers a point of contact that wasn't available before. Some line managers prior to having the point of contact did not support the programme and were unhelpful due to not having the understanding.

The more confidence I gained to speak up the more support I was given, however the lack of support in the first year was appalling and nearly resulted in me leaving the company due to a culmination of line managers not understanding and refusing to train properly due to limited time with them however in the final year of the programme there was more support offered with the apprentice coach and this gave line managers a point of contact.

A great deal of support from the training provider - they were always on hand to support with any issues and would put in time after a quick email exchange to catch up if needed. Alongside this they had dedicated tutors who would catch up regularly and support with wellbeing and work and really went above and beyond to support. The lecturers made the intense content much more enjoyable and the lecturers were also on hand to support.

I think without having the qualification my understanding of the work I am completing would be significantly worse as a lot of the material we learnt as part of the qualification was tailored to make it specific to the workplace and how we can use theories and models in real life scenarios. Some of the theory I use on a regular basis to discuss certain approaches and to get my point across. I feel I can challenge senior colleagues as I have the theory to back up my thinking.

There are some activities however if you aren't based in the london head office then there aren't as many as the head office has lots but not so much in other smaller sites. There are networking events for different groups of people, and one I attend is for women in networking. Outside of work I don't do any extra curricular activities but I do play the piano to relive stress from work.

Yes

Barclays has given me so much and without Barclays I would not be in the position I am in today. I truly believe that they do the right thing by customers and I admire what they do. There is so much opportunity to move around in the business and learn about different areas. They also have values that all staff should abide by and I like how they incorporate the values into everything that we do.

Make sure your CV/Covering letter is the best it can possibly be and not too long - get feedback from as many people as possible as everyone will have different views but then ensure to put your own perspective in there. In the interviews keep the values in mind at all times and relate back to them and use real life examples. Say yes to any opportunity that comes up and try to meet as many people as possible.