Creative Diversity Apprentice Review

My role is varied, ranging from tasks that help me build core administrative skills (such as researching, creating and maintaining spreadsheets, and devising presentations), to more interesting duties, unique to my organisation/team. For instance, my team engages in a lot of outreach and events work - I am able to help out in the organisation of these events, and interact with a variety of external stakeholders at the events themselves.

My core administrative abilities and intuition have been and continue to be strengthened by my Apprenticeship. I feel much more confident making arrangements (e.g. travel booking) on behalf of others, interacting with spreadsheets, and writing up meeting minutes. I also feel that I am gaining a wider breadth of knowledge on both the media field, and the professional handling of Diversity and Inclusion.

I very much enjoy my apprenticeship, especially when compared to previous part-time jobs I've had in the service/hospitality industry. I feel a greater sense of freedom and autonomy, and that I am doing more meaningful work, whilst improving my abilities. The roles of my colleagues are interesting to learn about, and being in a somewhat creative environment is very enriching for me.

The organisation of my apprenticeship programme is very easy to manage and stay on top of. I regularly meet with my tutor to discuss my tasks and workload, ensuring that I always know what I'm doing, have as much guidance as I need in doing it, and have arranged deadlines that fit in with my job role responsibilities.

I receive plenty of support from my manager and team members, as well as other employees (e.g. colleagues from my office, the IT department, and other staff I may interact with). I have regular catch-ups with my manager and several team members, allowing me a forum to raise any questions or queries I might have, but I am also afforded enough independent responsibility to learn things without assistance, building my skills and intuition in my role.

I receive very speedy and thorough feedback on all my submissions to each apprenticeship module. My tutor provides not just through this guidance, but also through our semi-regular meetings, and over email if I am ever in a position where I need to reach out to her for additional support. This isn't usually the case as the module specifications are often made clear to me so that I rarely have further questions.

Whilst I started off seeing my job role and apprenticeship qualification as two quite distinct things, I am beginning to appreciate the link between the two more and more. It isn't always the formal learning helping me perform better in my role, but sometimes the other way round: on-the-job experiences can help me build the more broad business administration understanding I need to succeed. Having said that I also am able to then re-apply the broader business knowledge established through my apprenticeship work back into my day-to-day activities too.

There is a very active network for the apprentices at Channel 4. The learning/early careers team are incredibly thorough in providing us with a varied and busy schedule of different talks, learning modules, and opportunities to engage with. They also ensure we are connected with one another should we want to socialise or make friends etc.

Yes

Channel 4 is a very interesting place to work, especially for someone in the early stages of their working life. There's lots of different professional departments/specialisms to learn about, and several opportunities to build the kinds of skills that could easily transfer into many different working fields. It's vibrant, creative, and strives to be as inclusive as possible, all making for a positive professional environment.

I would say to read up on the remit and the channel's values. It's also beneficial to be equipped with as much knowledge as you can find about the team/department to which you are applying. I think Channel 4 appreciates creativity and personality, so an overly professional approach may not be necessary, however It's always beneficial to be thorough and considered in one's application and interview etc!