Finishing school at 16, like many having no idea what I wanted to do as a career. I always loved sports and decided to enrol at college to do a personal trainer course. Roll on to September, the day before I was due to start college and I honestly bottled it! The fear of going to a college in a town where I didn’t know anyone was to dauting. I plucked up the courage to tell my parents and they were really supportive however the exact words from my dad were “that’s fine, but you must find yourself a job” and this is where I discovered Apprenticeships. Back in 2006 Apprenticeships weren’t well known and had a ridiculous stigma that they were for kids who didn’t do well in their GCSE’s.
I managed to secure myself an interview with a local Insolvency company called Debt Free Direct. My mum took me shopping and bought me a full business suit to attend my interview. After my interview I was offered the role as “Business Apprentice” and was enrolled on a Business Administration Level 2 course where I went to college one day a week and the rest was spent in the office, I worked full-time and my take home pay was exactly £333.33 per month!
This job to start with was as basic as can be but as a young 16 year old I learnt things which still stay with me to this day, how to manage a diary, telephone manner, presenting alongside the admins such as photocopying, filing, packing envelopes even what letter head is! (I still remember the look I got when I asked a colleague what letter head was!) the things you don’t get taught at school but the basics you need for any line of work. I also learnt from being in the workplace the importance of time keeping, updating a CRM, customer service. Roll on 10 years later and I had worked my way up to a Team Leader having completed Business Administration Level 2, Level 3 and a Diploma in Team Leading. This company invested heavily in apprentices and the majority of us spent over 10 years with company.
After 10 years and the age of 26 and a mum of two at the time I made the incredibly hard decision to leave the job and the people I had known from being a child to being a mother myself. I knew it was time for me to move on and use the skills I had learnt within a new opportunity, and this is where I joined Sharples Davies!
Sharples Davies again invested in me and my education even further and I completed a Diploma in Social Media & Marketing which again involved work based tutoring where I had a lovely tutor Joe who came to the office twice a month to support me with my learning. What I learnt on this course has set the standards in our marketing and online presence for Sharples Davies however I was also able to set up a completely new business for Sharples Davies doing room hire from our offices in Chorley, through networking, creating literature and designing, writing the content and launching the website and social media platforms solely on my own I am pleased to say we have seen a very large return on investment and we are pretty much at capacity on room hire.
Roll on another 10 years, 4 apprenticeship programmes later, coming up to 10 years with Sharples Davies, 20 years of work experience (with never having any student debt) I am incredible grateful and thankful for my career path. The stigma around apprenticeships has long gone and I would go as far to say it is in my opinion now the further education of choice!
I am incredibly passionate about apprenticeships and the endless opportunities they offer young people. The experience of being in the workplace around highly skilled professionals however also being around people with much more life experience is invaluable in both the work place and life in general.
If you do have the ability and resources to take on an apprentice then do it! Quite simply you are creating your future star! Giving that young person the opportunity and shaping their career, you never know they could go on to be sitting on the board in 20 – 30 years time! Not only that but the world is an evolving place which changes with each generation – you WILL learn a thing or to from them!
On a side note apprenticeships are also not just for school leavers! consider upskilling your current employees. Investing in your employees leads to retention and job satisfaction for them however only benefits your business financially.
