Global Procurement Apprentice Review

The procurement Apprenticeship is split into two years. The first year I was working within the UK Procurement team predominately within IT and Data. A day to day looked like: Writing contract variations, executing NDA's, negotiating deals, running RFP's, making sure order forms are correct, finding the best methods to purchase goods, whether directly, through a reseller or through a catalogue. The second year is more of a project management role, being in charge of the Modern Slavery Movement, Carbon disclosure project and general improvement projects within the procurement function.

In many various ways, shadowing my work colleagues, through the apprenticeship and learning procurement based content, training modules that Experian provide and finally through completing the task myself. All have contributed to my knowledge growing and feeling comfortable to carry out day to day activities without feeling overwhelmed. Experian have a platform called elevate, this is where you can find modules not only relating to your job role but also relating to other job roles as well as skills such as excel or presenting.

The Journey with SRSCC has had it's ups and downs, there were some original issues with assigned hours being way higher than 8 per week. Once this had been addressed, SRSCC were a lot better, they offered support where needed and provided ample resources in multiple sources: Videos, print outs, E-learning to make sure all learning styles were accounted for.

SRSCC use an online portal called Aptem. Within the Aptem profile, it is segmented into months, here you can see all upcoming tasks due for that month. These consist of: Assignments, workplace applications, E-learnings, exams, reviews, practise tests and so on. This makes it relatively easy to structure your time. The only improvement is there were often lectures or webinars on random days, it would be more helpful to put them on the same day each week and put them in further in advance.

Within Experian the Apprenticeship programme is outstanding, they have a dedicated Early careers team that tend to the needs of apprentices and graduates throughout the 2 year journey. They also give paid days off for study and make sure you have the recommended hours off work to get all of your studying complete.

SRSCC provide lots of support for upcoming exams, they make sure the textbooks are delivered 12 weeks in advance, they host in person/ online sessions on the content, they have e-learning style information, there's multiple sets of practise questions and mock exams, practise essays and so on. This allows for all potential learning styles. It would be good from the start to state what is mandatory and what is optional

Definitely, especially in areas such as budgeting formats, which you need to know the theory behind prior to implementation. In addition forming a Business case, it's really helpful to see the structured way to create a Business case. Completing a first draft I had more of an idea of what to include

Experian offer a wide range of extra-curricular activities. Experian give 3 days paid leave to all employees for volunteering to support the CSR agenda. This allows various teams to go and improve the community in different ways. In addition there are activities such as boot camp at lunch, 5 a side football and other sporting events any Experian employee can get involved in

Yes

It's a great inclusive place to work and provides great benefits to employees. I feel valued within my team, and treated as an individual opposed to a number which is sometimes the case in large multinational organisations. In addition, the environment is friendly and nothing is ever too much trouble.

Research the organisation and the large projects the organisation has recently completed. Understand the benefits there are of Experian such as the 3 paid volunteering days and state any ideas you have to use these days potentially linking to previous volunteering work. In addition, understanding the Experian way can go a long way in interviews.