Apprentice Broadcast Engineer Review

My title is Broadcast Engineer Apprentice My general responsibilities involve placements at different areas of the BBC and partner companies where I do various things from fixing equipment to configuring a setup. For my final year I'm doing a project in a local BBC department.

Qualification wise, I've worked towards my Beng with the University of Salford and Birmingham City University. I've completed training courses to do with engineering at the BBC training facility called Wood Norton. Personally I've improved my people skills but professionally I've learnt how broadcast systems work in detaill

My placements are very good, I learn from some of the best in the industry and can manage to do many different areas of broadcast. The team varies, but I've had very little problems with this. The company is a very interesting culture, being a public service broadcaster I find that the culture varies drastically, people are mostly very nice but the culture can suffer in the projects department with the high amount of wasted time deciding whether to go ahead with the project or not. I mostly enjoy the program however there are some small problems in the way the company is ran.

I feel valued by my manager with the help of their appraisals. Internally I find I am mostly values by other employees. Externally, I don't seem to get much value other than the occasional linkedin message. I've not been at the very front of any projects but I've always had an involvement which is often delegated to me.

The induction was very helpful in getting to meet other employees who are just starting. The training is not very well structured, the BBC does the job well but the University is very bad at dealing with the way our course is ran, this often means that too much or too little work is set at different times, they also try to treat us like normal students despite our odd schedule.

The support from the University is very poor, they expect us to be able to come and use their facilities and speak to them in person despite the fact that many of us are based outside of Salford. Many tutors ignore emails or avoid the question when they respond and generally make things difficult.

When support has been requested from within the BBC, it has mostly been very good. My manager often sorts out any issues which may arise when asked, I have been assigned a mentor but unfortunately it is hard to find time to meet them because they're based in a different city. HR is not that helpful often, this may be due to the scale compared to the company as it's hard to get them to reply in a timely manner.

My salary was originally very tight however this has now changed due to some changes within the BBC, being a third year apprentice my salary has increased which allows me to very comfortably live. Expenses cover any travelling done to different parts of the country including an overnight stay at a hotel and an evening meal.

There are quite a few company events happening throughout the BBC, usually organised by the local teams around the country. Every now and then we go and meet out for a dinner somewhere which is very nice.

Yes

The BBC is a very good company to join, the people working here are very nice and mostly fairly happy, everybody is happy to impart their knowledge onto you to help you improve yourself as a person.

In terms of getting into the BBC, you have to make yourself appear as passionate as possible, experience is mostly irrelevant as long as you can show a general interest in technology. For the interview you should try to answer questions even if you don't know the answer, it's very good to think with a logical mind at all stages of this application process.