Showroom Apprentice Review

As a showroom apprentice, I am a training fitted furniture designer which means I have the same roles and tasks as a professional designer while also studying best practices and learning valuable customer service skills. I also learn about other products like lighting, worktops, tiles, appliances, flooring and many more.

While I was at school and college, I studied graphic and product design. So I was already quite aware of basic design principles, but this apprenticeship taught me how to apply my knowledge into how I can decorate and/or put fitted furniture into a space in an efficient way

I do enjoy my programme. So far this is the only job/apprenticeship I have really enjoyed and been able to understand. Not only is the course itself enjoyable, but my colleagues, managers and training coaches are all very supportive and welcoming. They offer help even when it isn’t needed

The only improvement I would make to the apprenticeship would be more regular check ins. We do have a check in webinar for each module, but I think an email every now and again just to check up on apprentices wouldn’t go unappreciated. Other than this, everything is very well organised and easy to understand

I do receive support from my employer. They do understand that a condition of me working for them is that I have to complete this apprenticeship and so they do give me the time to complete my work when I need to. My manager especially helps me segregate time away from the rest of my work to complete apprenticeship work

I receive plenty of help from the training provider. We have debrief webinars which go through each module in detail so we have a better idea of what we need to do for each task, we have check in webinars to check on progress and if I have any questions, I can always ask my coach. My coach in particular is happy to help with any issue I have and has even helped with some financial problems I have been having recently

This qualification helps me through my role as, if I weren’t studying the basics to fitted furniture, I wouldn’t be able to design an efficient kitchen or bathroom design. The qualification helps me understand what the smartest ideas could be for a given space which I can then relay onto the customer to provide a kitchen or bathroom that is suited to them

There aren’t many social activities provided at my work between staff other than specific professional events. However, I am regularly given the opportunity to go on training that allows me to network with other branches and/or companies to create relationships within the industry. We were supposed to have a staff Christmas party, but this is still TBC

Yes

All staff are easy to get along with, you can tell the company is there to look after it’s employees (for example, we receive payments to help with the cost of living crisis), managing staff aren’t overbearing or overwhelming and I don’t feel overworked or dread coming to work because it is a healthy environment

Be open and honest about who you are. At MKM, they care more about who you are as a person and what your personality can bring to the company and it’s customers than how much experience you have in a given field or how much experience you have working with a particular product