Project Professional Apprentice Review

Each working day can be different and there has been a lot of variety of work I have been exposed to. I have had to attend various meetings with the team. Contribute to the management of the project in both PM and PC. Lead risk workshops to manage and monitor risks. Take minutes in meetings to distribute with the team. Complete further curriculum activities such as courses internally and webinars externally. Spend time doing work towards apprenticeship qualifications, e.g coursework or revision. I would argue that sometimes the apprentices aren’t given opportunities with much responsibility, but this is expected given the importance of the work within the MoD.

Yes, I have learnt a variety of PM and PC skills which will be carried forward throughout my career. This includes work relating to risk, schedule and stakeholder management, which I have learnt about in theory but also completed physical work in. I have also furthered my confidence and experience in soft skills such as leadership, team work and communication by being in a professional environment and interacting with new and different people.

On the most part the apprenticeship has been a positive and rewarding experience, through the qualifications I have obtained and the experience in a professional environment I have been in. Despite this, I would say working from home due to covid for such a long period of time has had a detrimental impact on this and I maybe haven’t enjoyed the apprenticeship as much as I could have being in office with the team. This however couldn’t be helped, and has been an interesting experience to be part of, having to adapt the way of working so early on in my apprenticeship.

The apprenticeship is 2 years long, however, the qualifications involved are completed within the first year and a half, leaving 6 months at the end of the apprenticeship where you maintain an apprentice level whilst not having any apprenticeship material to work towards. This does make the apprenticeship feel rushed and this is something which could do with changing. The project teams are also not made very aware of the requirements on work which needs to be provided for apprentices. On the most part other elements are well organised.

As previously discussed, I believe COVID and working from home has had an impact on this as the support maybe hasn’t been as frequent and meaningful as it could have been in person and face to face. However, the apprenticeship scheme do stay in touch regularly and put an importance on mental well-being.

QA as a training provider have been pretty good at offering support. They arrange regular calls to go through revision materials for the exam, or to check over portfolio/coursework progress. When it comes to the EPA, they gave lots of documents to read through and help with the preparation. However, there has been many changes of skills coach and I have had 3 different skills coaches within a year, which isn’t very consistent.

The qualifications are professionally recognised and have furthered both my knowledge in PM and PC, but also given the opportunity to work towards learning about and getting experience in different areas of PM and PC. Completing the qualifications provided structure to the work I had to complete as it meant I had areas in which I had to be exposed to and complete work in.

I have been involved in the mental health working group within my team, mentoring outreach scheme with the local schools, mock interviews with the local school, networking sessions within the apprentice cohort. Within my project team I have also met up for group socials such as BBQs. I have also obtained an APM Membership to get involved in webinars and further networking with the PM network. Having some activities surrounding sports would be nice to have as there isn’t anything sports related currently.

Yes

Overall, the experience has been positive and rewarding and the qualifications obtained from the apprenticeship will be able to be carried forward throughout my career and hopefully lead me to further opportunities. The salary is competitive and the salary at the end of the apprenticeship is also an increase on the base pay of the level. The work environment is generally positive and offers growth academically and personally.

Be confident and make sure you know some facts about the organisation and the work they do. Try to do some networking prior to applying, contact people in the job you’re applying for through LinkIn or other professional networking areas to get a better understanding of what to expect in the interview process/job as a whole. This will be good to talk about when required but also to figure out if the job is right for you.