Higher Apprentice Review

Due to the nature of the business, my role is constantly changing and I get a lot of opportunities to do new things. For example last month I traveled down to various places in London for a few days at a time, attending client meetings and meeting new people, and also attending a special day long event for our project where I was demonstrating a piece of software to potential clients. I then spent a week in the Capgemini office in Glasgow working with a colleague up there. Not everyone is this active and I was informed that there would be travelling involved before I accepted the role, but there are also options for people who would rather stay closer to home the majority of the time.

My self confidence and people skills have skyrocketed since I started as I have had to meet and talk to new people on a daily basis, and sometimes be nudged a bit out of my comfort zone. We learned and developed a lot of new skills from great tutors during the training, including C#, Java, SQL, Project Management and Data Modelling. Since then, I have been required to improve and use these skills in my roles, as well as learn various new skills on the job.

I love every minute of it, and I am absolutely relieved and excited that I managed to get an opportunity for a career as my first job. I love the fact that as a higher apprentice, I get paid a good wage and also have my degree funded. I also love that we are treated like real employees and we are given actual roles that would be filled by a different employee if we weren't there.

As I said above, as an apprentice I am treated like any other employee and gain all of the same benefits. I feel valued because I have been given challenging roles where the work has very real responsibility tied to it. I also like the fact that apprentices are put straight into roles when they leave the training and go to the business; obviously people understand that they are new and they are eased into it a little bit, but you are given proper work to do right from the get go.

The programme is still in a fledgling state which can sometimes give the impression that things are a bit disorganized, but it is mainly because they take the feedback of the training from apprentices seriously, and there are change (Sometimes major) made between one group of apprentices finishing training and the next started (A matter of weeks) based on feedback and how the apprentices think it could be made better for the next group. Overall though, the programme has a good structure but is still flexible. We know what work we must be doing and we know who to contact about it.

Each apprentice has an assessor from the training provider (QA), and each assessor normally covers the apprentices in a particular office. The job of the assessor is to have one to one meetings every 2-4 weeks to give feedback and help, and receive any concerns. They can also be contacted via phone or email if there are any questions that need to be answered. It is our responsibility to organize our work and keep in contact and arrange meetings with our assessor, which is good as it allows us to be flexible and arrange our apprenticeship work around our day to day roles.

There are many avenues that can be taken if support is required, depending on what is needed. Our apprenticeship leader is always available via phone/email, and gets back to us quickly despite her busy schedule, and if it is regarding a serious issue then immediate action is taken. For lesser issues, every apprentice has a SPOC (Single point of contact) and/or reviewer (Often the two are combined). This is a senior employee who has volunteered to take the position, usually one reviewer per 2-5 apprentices. This person is our first port of call for any questions we have, and will escalate any issue if needed.

The pay is very good for an apprenticeship and the fact that they are sponsoring a degree, and the opportunity to get promoted and start building a career is right there from the beginning. On a more personal level, the pay was enough for me to move into a nice flat in Birmingham city centre from my home in Newcastle, pay my rent+bills monthly and still leave plenty of money to go into my savings for holidays next year as well as buy the latest game releases and general spending. I do not want to get comfortable earning this much for a long time, but it is enough to fund the lifestyle of young person living away from home comfortably

Capgemini run loads of events and opportunities both inside and outside of work. The company has a strong feeling of responsibility towards giving back to the local community where the offices are, and runs charity events, coffee mornings etc which support local charities. Apprentices are also encouraged to attend recruitment evenings where people can go and learn a lot more about the apprenticeship from the people who are involved in it. They feel its good having apprentices at these events who don't necessarily take part in the running of them, but can go around and talk to various people and answer questions about their own experiences in the programme.

Yes

I have already referred one friend who is now undergoing training right now. A few reasons why I would recommend the advanced apprentice programme to GCSE leavers and higher apprenticeship to college/A-level leavers over any degree or other course: - 10 week technical training course with great tutors that beats any school or college courses; I learned more in that space of time than 3 years on ICT related courses in college. - Good, fair pay - The company treats its employees very well - Great work environments - Excellent career opportunity

Capgemini are looking for people who show a serious passion of interest in ICT/Computing/Technology in general. My absolute top tip that will greatly help anyone applying is to get some prior experience and experimentation in something like programming, electronics or technological!!! There are so many resources on the internet now that allow people to do this, for example 'Codecadamy' offers great free lessons for beginners to programming in the Python language, it gets your foot in the door and means you can impress people as soon as you walk in, demonstrating that not only are you passionate enough to go and learn it yourself, but you are good at it too! If you get through then the next biggest piece of advice is that you get out what you put in! This is no place for people who want to glide through and do the bare minimum, Capgemini are only interested in taking on people that will make a real effort and demonstrate that they have improved by the end of the training period.