Chartered Management Degree Apprentice Review

We go through a rotation of four different roles throughout the apprenticeship; each role is six months long and in either marketing, sales, supply chain or category. This means we can get a good overview of different roles before selecting one to specialise in for the final year. I am currently in my sales rotation and my role is Sales Planning Executive, I help Customer Business Managers created the codes and nominate the promotions in the customers' systems.

I have learned loads of new skills throughout the apprenticeship so far. This is with both the learning aspect of the degree with Sheffield Hallam and during the job. This training and development at work is extremely valuable as these are skills that my peers who have chosen to go to university won't be able to develop; this sets me apart from them.

Really enjoying it so far. It has allowed me to meet a lot of really interesting people; as well as, build really important experience and develop my university learnings in an hands on environment. The apprenticeship has also felt really rewarding as I have been given real responsibility early on and get recognised for the good work we do.

It is really well structured as the lay out of the apprenticeship allows us to experience a really wide range of jobs and roles within Nestle. This means that each apprentice gets a really good understanding of which part of the business appeals most to them and which is the best fit for them. It also means that we have more experience of the business and the different roles than even some people who have been in the business for many years.

Everyone at Nestle is really kind and very willing to help and support you in anyway that they can. From the academy giving you visibility of really great development opportunities; colleagues and line managers wanting to help you build as much experience as possible across the role and function. People really like it if you are proactive in searching for these opportunities and once they know what your goals are they really enjoy helping provide you with the opportunities to help reach them.

The academy set up sessions to help give context to the learnings you have after each university week. The team are also really helpful with it as they are very understanding if you need some time to focus on an assignment they are more than willing to help you with it, they are also very useful if you need a better understanding of the business or any information to include in the assignment they will often help you with it.

It gives you a really good base knowledge of how businesses run and how they can improve their practices. These theoretical learnings we receive at university are really useful to take back into the practical working environment. It also means that the theories we learn make more sense as you can see how they actually work in real life; this is a level of experience that students that only go to university will struggle to get.

At the moment there are fewer events like this due to Covid. However, they have setup some really good virtual socials and networking activities. On top of this speaking with previous apprentices they found that there were tonnes of these activities that work put on for the employees. Work are also really happy to help you set up any of these activities if you want; for example, I am a part of an walking to goals activity that was set up by employees.

Yes

Because everyone in the company are really nice and really happy to help you in anyway that they can. You also get so many great experiences and are able to build these and your network; this is something that will set you apart from your other peers, whilst still getting a degree. Nestle is also a global company that is instantly recognised which looks really good.

They really love when applicants are themselves and don't try to fit what they think Nestle wants to see; if that is the case and they view you as a great fit for Nestle which is when you'll make the most of the apprenticeship and really enjoy it.