This time last year I felt very lost. I was struggling to keep my head above water with the worry of my future and a workload that was threatening to drag me down. The pressure was piling on and I finally cracked.
Fast forward to today, 6 months into my apprenticeship, managing our organic social media, having just won Apprentice of the year. I am a walking, talking example of ‘things might not be too good right now, but they will get better’. I am hugely proud of everything that I have achieved, and I don’t think that I would have been able to develop as much as I have without doing an apprenticeship.
I could sit here a tell you about how amazing it is to be able to have an education and earn a wage at the same time but I’m 99.8% sure that you have already been told this. So I’m going to share a few reasons why more people should consider apprenticeships. Hopefully, these will be reasons that you may not have considered before.
Slowly but Surely
It acts as a stop gap between full time education and full time work. Although I work 40 hours a week like any other full time employees and study for an advanced apprenticeship, I have had time to slowly build upon my responsibilities. At first I looked after one client for organic social media. After a couple of months I was given the responsibilities of managing the entire Social Media offering for DigitalDinos, resulting in where I am now. Please remember that I had never done any professional digital marketing before starting this apprenticeship so it just shows how fast you can learn. This career path allows you to slowly creep out of your comfort zone, without feeling too overwhelmed.
A guiding light
The support is a huge bonus to apprenticeship. I hear so many horror stories about the severe lack of contact time with tutors and professors at university. As an apprentice, I have a huge support system around me. Not only do I have the guys at DigitalDinos, but I also have the college and my tutor who is always on hand when I’m struggling or need to ask a question. Having this has really helped me to develop at the rate I have and is really one of my favourite things about being an apprentice.
Getting your foot in the door
Much that I understand that many careers, like medicine and law all require a degree, I believe that in some industries, experience says a lot more. However, to get a job you need experience but to get experience you need a job. It’s similar to the case of ‘What came first, the chicken or the egg’. If you have no experience, apprenticeships are the way to go. You can go into the work place and learn as much as you possibly can, without having relentless expectations for your performance. It’s a great way to get your foot in the door.
Employability
There are so many myths about apprentices, one being that they aren’t as employable as university graduates. It’s a lie and I’ve got the stats to prove it. Employers believe that former apprentices are 15% more employable than those with other qualifications. I not only get to learn the hard skills like Google Analytics, web design etc that you would learn in your standard digital marketing degree at university, but I also learn a range of soft skills including how to deal with clients, communication and time management that are all invaluable in the workplace.
So, all in all, don’t listen to the people saying apprentices are just ‘those who don’t to go to university’, ‘no one will want to employ you’ or ‘you’ll never earn a real wage’, because they are wrong. Apprenticeships are becoming ever more popular and I would wholeheartedly recommend them to anyone. There are jobs that require a degree and obviously, I wouldn’t recommend an apprenticeship to you, because if you are training to become a doctor or a nurse, I don’t particularly want to be the patient when you’re learning to operate on the job!
