Degree Apprenticeship Experience
The application process for Degree Apprenticeships are more rigorous than anything else you will have applied for up to this point in your school life. I spent countless evenings after school throughout year 13 applying for these positions across an extensive range of industries, these had a few stages which you had to pass through until you got an interview or assessment centre; the process ran mainly (but varied in how many stages there were and what parts they did for each of their processes) in this format: the initial application form and sending your CV, cognitive tests / games to work through which worked out your abilities, a video interview where you record your answers to pre-set questions which gets reviewed or a phone call interview where you are asked a few questions; once you get through all these stages you are invited to an assessment centre with other candidates which includes individual and group tasks, a tour of the workplace, interview etc, successful candidates then get called for the final stage of interviewing before being offered the Apprenticeship if you are successful throughout all the stages. It is tough; however, I hope my experiences detailed below of a Degree Apprenticeship make the above seem worthwhile.
I am a Management Degree Apprentice at Clipper Logistics who are a third-party logistics provider for some of the largest names in retail such as ASOS, John Lewis, Pretty Little Thing, etc. I work at their Ollerton site which houses contracts for Wilko, Asda, River Island, M&S and 6 others. There are endless opportunities to gain such a vast range of real life working experience which I have been able to take advantage of, from the moment I started on the Apprenticeship, including: ensuring the successful implementation of a new packaging machine into Asda’s operation after its installation in the first week I started, learning the basic jobs that the colleagues do on the various operations; building my knowledge to gain a Team Leader position where I have been in both the Asda and River Island contracts. I have worked throughout the Covid-19 Pandemic as the site did not close for even 1 day, this has been the busiest ever time for the business seeing record volumes of customers’ orders, returns and new customers for Clipper such as the NHS to provide PPE to hospitals.
My current role is Managing a new operation for The Very Group which I set up initially, my responsibilities include communicating with the customer and managing their expectations, planning workloads and labour, continuous improvement; looking into how we can improve and extend our service to the customer which we can then present to them, aiming to secure further business. I have also had the chance to meet Senior Executive Managers for both Clipper and our different Customer’s, travel to other sites (before Covid), networking with people within the Clipper business, both current Managers, and Apprentices. We have 6 blocks of 4 days at the University a year which are full day sessions, the rest of the time we are in the workplace, so you have to balance work and assignments from university which is another invaluable skill to have.
This is hard work, however there are many perks and benefits to doing a Degree Apprenticeship, including: earning a salary whilst not taking on any student debt as the University course is paid for by the company, when at University everything is paid for such as the hotel, food and drink, years of real life work experience and a job at the end to walk into which is so critical in today’s working society, in addition to this, upon completion of the Apprenticeship, you achieve a degree the same as any full time University student would, along with an Apprenticeship Qualification which makes you stand out, and furthermore any other qualifications which you can achieve through the company, which I have done a couple of within different areas of work.
Doing a Degree Apprenticeship is a great way to start your career, the benefits of going down this road after Sixth Form are endless, the experiences you will gain from working within a real-life work environment are unmatched and make you stand out, and this makes you more employable to future companies.
James Green
Management Degree Apprentice
QEHS Alumni 2012 – 2019
You can contact James at: Jamesgreen@clippergroup.co.uk
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