Commercial Apprentice Review

The current role I am in is CCSD, working in Sales Opps. I mainly focus on a few things each week, every Monday I create the sales call deck to give an overview of the previous week's performance and key areas to improve upon in the coming weeks. I also work on other projects such as online audits in E-commerce to review the way our products appear in online shops. The day-to-day work revolves around bridging the gaps between supply, marketing and sales.

One of the key skills I learned in my previous role, supply chain, was different functions regarding excel and how to use this to gather information and present it cleanly. I have learned general business skills throughout the role so far, such as customer wants and needs, and managing supply through allocation stock and managing production output.

I enjoy the programme much more than I have previous jobs and education. There are many different things in the job that make it more enjoyable, such as weekly coffee mornings and team connect meetings doing things such as quizzes or general chats. However it is still a job first and foremost, and this does come with the pressure of performing in the role and completing university projects

The Nestlé/Working side of the role is very well organised with roles being busy enough to learn the role but not so overwhelming that we fall behind on university work. There have been some issues so far with the university course, but this is understandable as the course has been suddenly put online due to COVID, so it has been hard for both students and teachers alike to adjust to the change in course.

Nestlé is very supportive throughout the course, offering academy courses for both the university aspect as well as mental health courses to help improve mindset and make sure all apprentices are doing well. Both my line managers so far have been very understanding with giving time to complete the university course and help give training on-the-job when requested.

The university offers training courses on their website as well as support from lecturers with the university weeks. It is still hard to accurately describe this though as we have not had many university weeks and all have been online so far. The course leader is very supportive and helps make sure no-one is struggling.

So far I feel like the course has not been too relevant to my roles, however this could be due to the roles I am performing. So far we have covered organisations in context and sales/marketing. As I have done my supply chain rotation and started on CCSD, I have not done too much work around sales and marketing, but I am sure as I work further into sales and marketing the course will become more applicable.

Currently this is very difficult due to COVID, but there are some online options such as a fantasy football group and some after-work socials. This is an area that is likely to improve once restrictions loosen, but there is currently not a huge array of options, however my year of apprentices often have socials online after work/uni weeks

Yes

The role is incredibly promising and offers lots of options career-wise. If you have any interest in business this apprenticeship is hugely beneficial as you get to try multiple areas of a business, and you can learn which area suits your skills most whilst also learning how you can help operate with other functions and the interactions between each group.

Focus on time management at first, as it is important to find time to manage everything work wise and also complete your uni work, whilst still having time to relax and socialise. I would also recommend to make sure to store items in a way you can monitor, as there will be lots to cover and lots of different important links, emails, notes and spreadsheets to keep track of.