Internal Communications Apprentice Review

My day-to-day activities include procuring and creating content for use on our Intranet and via email. This involves liaising with HR and departments across the business to share the most important updates with colleagues across the company. My responsibilities include writing news articles for internal use, updating our day-to-day calendars, building our weekly newsletter for release company wide, coordinating content, procuring and creating content for internal use.

in terms of my role, my communication skills have definitely improved both verbal and written. In order to procure stories and content for the Intranet and weekly newsletter I have to talk with all different kinds of people from varying departments (eg; HR, Legal, Corporate Communications, contacts from across all our art departments, IT, Marketing.... the list goes on). In terms of my apprenticeship course however, I have learnt many new skills. To name a few, how to create a marketing campaign and pitch it, how to plan and edit video, how to plan and edit photography for social media use, what different writing styles are appropriate for different situations.

I really enjoy my programme, I do wish it was a little more targeted to my role just as I don't get to do a lot of social media posting or video/photo editing myself due to our content being targeted internally. However, I have really enjoyed what I have learned! There are skills that I can use on a daily basis and others that I can bring in to internal comms or use in future roles.

We have 1:1 training sessions every month in which we cover some learning and task setting. At the beginning of the course there was a lot of LinkedIn learning, Google digital garage and other video based courses set which did get a bit tiresome after a while - but the further into the course I got the more structured it became.

Christie's is a great support when it comes to support. It is really easy to ask questions and ask for help. Shadowing is very common place here so even though there are some elements of my course that don't necessarily fit into my day-to-day it is more than possible to spend a few days / weeks in another department to get more experience. Even if the department is super busy, colleagues across the business are always more than willing to set aside an hour or two to show you how everything works or guide you with your course.

The support is good, when setting tasks my tutor always gives me examples of good work to help guide me when completing the task, everything is explained well and clearly so I don't often have many questions. However, sometimes I do find it hard to reach my tutor outside of training sessions when I have a query but more often than not they are simple questions that can wait till the next session.

Because my course is so broad there are many things that don't fit into my day to day, however, there are many things that do and many things that I have been able to introduce to my day-to-day role because of this. It has helped to expose me to different ways of creating content, I am able to bring this into my role and suggest more exciting ways to create content.

There are lots of different activities that you can take part in at Christie's. We have quarterly apprentice social events, lots of Christie's colleague events that you can attend, Christie's education courses which are free to Christie's employees (a great way to learn more about art and the art market) etc.

Yes

If you love the arts it is a great place to be, you are surrounded by art all the time (even if your not in an art or client facing role). Everyone has been so welcoming, patient and willing to help. You never feel like there are barriers in your way and you are often given great responsibilities that you would never think that you could achieve until you do!

Be curious, don't be afraid to ask questions. There is so much to learn here and such great opportunities to explore the business. If you don't ask you don't get is probably the biggest thing i've learned, don't be afraid of sounding silly when asking for things like shadowing opportunities or things that will help your learning.