As some of you may know this week has been National Apprenticeship Week; so I thought what better time to share my experience of being an apprentice and the reasons I chose to pursue this career path.
Firstly a bit about myself, my name is Josh and I am currently undertaking an apprenticeship in Digital Marketing provided by Baltic Training Services. I have been working here at Purple for roughly 4 months and am thoroughly enjoying the experience. My role at Purple consists of managing clients social media accounts as well as other marketing tools they might be using.
Initially, I wasn’t planning on taking the apprenticeship route, mainly due to not knowing much about them. Like most people, I only thought you could get apprenticeships in trade roles such as Brick Laying or Joinery, but unbeknown to me there are apprenticeships in a vast array of job roles. Once I had researched further into what apprenticeships can offer it seemed almost too good to be true!
To put it in simply an apprenticeship is almost an ‘Earn As You Learn’ scheme. Most weeks I am at Purple and learning while I am in the workplace, however, I also do week-long training weeks provided by Baltic Training. In these training weeks, I attend webinar lectures in which we prepare for an exam based on the information we have been learning about. This, for me, was a major selling point for apprenticeships, as the other option I was thinking about was attending University. At University I would have been paying upwards of £9,000 a year in fees and therefore once I’d have finished my course I would have amassed a sizable amount of debt.
Now I am not saying University is a bad option to start your career, all I am saying is there are more options out there and it’s about finding what is right for you. An apprenticeship was the best option for me and I have been lucky enough to be given this wonderful opportunity here at Purple.
If you are an employer and would like to know the benefits of employing an apprentice here is what our Client Service Director, Sarah, had to say about the apprenticeship experience from the point of view an employer:
“Back in 2014 Purple took a gigantic leap, we hired our very first apprentice! After communicating with Richmond School, we were lucky enough to meet and hire James, who has now been with us for 4 years! Through working with James and Baltic Training we discovered that hiring an apprentice was a wonderful way to help our team and business grow, since then we have never looked back! Last year we took on Kieran as an apprentice and when his apprenticeship finished we recruited Josh. We really like employing people who can train and learn on the job and we have been incredibly lucky that all our apprentices have enhanced our wonderful team”.
If you want to know more about apprenticeships and what they can offer you, here are some useful links:
Aprenticeships.gov
Baltic Training Services