Business Apprentice Review

In my apprenticeship I am a business apprentice but my main department is financial controlling. This means day to day I work in finance. My main responsibility is to plan the budgets and forecasts for the Human Resources department. I also run reports for different financial KPIs such as time per unit. As well as doing my placements in finance, I have also worked in production steering and HR with more placements planned for the future.

Yes, I have learnt lots of new skills. Since working at BMW I have learnt how to use excel and also SAP systems. As well as these computer skills I have also developed my presentation, confidence and communication skills too and have noticed a huge development since I started the role.

I really enjoy my apprenticeship. My manager is really supportive as well as the rest of my team and other people I have met. I think when at work having friendly faces around the workplace makes the job even more enjoyable. There are so many apprentices here so you can still meet other young people and I have met lots of new friends.

The structure of the programme is organised by my training advisor, as here at BMW there is a team of apprenice managers who support apprentices. It is my training advisors job to organise my placements and she has been great at doing this. I have a plan of where I am going up until the end of my apprenticeship so I know what is coming up.

There is lots of support available. As mentioned in the last question there is my training advisor who schedules 1-1s with me every 3 months but is also always available if I require additional support. As well as this my line manager has always been very supportive of me and my development.

My tutor at college is very helpful at giving us feedback on work to help us improve our marks. We also had 1-1 appointments with our tutor, but these seem to have stopped in year 2. However, I know that if I needed extra support they would be happy to sit down with me for as much or as little as I need. Some of the teachers provide less support than others so it would be helpful if they all offered as much as each other to ensure consistency throughout the modules.

I believe that the knowledge we gain in some aspects helps me with my role. But a lot of the modules are in areas that I don't cover at work therefore don't particularly help me. Some of our modules require us to do presentations which I believe has been helpful at improving my confidence with presenting which will help me in my job.

Yes there are many extra-curricular activities. There are two main apprentice-led groups: Charity team and Newsletter team. In the charity team, apprentices organise/ plan events to raise money for charity, The newsletter team produces monthly newsletters which share what apprentices have been getting up to across all UK BMW sites (Oxford, Swindon, Goodwood, Hams Hall and Farnborough). In the summer I have also been involved in an apprentice/intern netball group which we do after work.

Yes

I would recommend BMW Group as an apprenticeship employer based on the great experience I have had so far. They offer a vast amount of programmes at different levels and with great salary and benefits such as a car scheme. The support is good too which improves the experience for me.

I would recommend researching the BMW Group and have knowledge about what the plants do and know reasons about why you would like to work for them. Try and show that you are keen to learn new things and that you have good communication skills. I would also recommend preparing for examples of when you have shown certain attributes/skills in your interview questions.