Vehicle Technician Review

Vehicle technician, I work on vehicles on a day to day basis carrying out rework on interior and exterior trim. Currently I am on a placement in another department carrying out electrical testing on prototype vehicles.

I have carried out various internal training courses on new software development that the company will be using in the future. I am awaiting the date to carry out my class 2 driver training allowing me to drive on and off site in company vehicles.

To a certain extent I have enjoyed my apprenticeship with regards to the workshop culture and working with various people. Of course there are negatives to the apprenticeship as I was missold my job role and I am working in a department that I dont enjoy.

In my home department I feel like I am not a valued employee and that I am not listened to or any of my ideas taken into consideration. When being out on placement I have found that this is not the case in the wider business and in fact the standards within one particular department.

The programmed is meant to be structured but in fact is very unstructured. To do with my training the college have been very inadequate with regards to timetabling and supplying both lecturers and course material. To the point that in my last year at college I am now rushing to try and get the rest of my work completed, through no fault of my own.

I do not receive any support from my training provider and in many cases where there has been a problem or issue that I have raised it more or less gets brushed under the carpet. There is no ownership of mistakes and the majority of the time the apprentices get blamed for the colleges mistakes.

I receive a lot of support from my employer in terms of having someone that I can go to if I feel like I have a problem but the majority of the time when speaking to my work based learning manager I feel like I am not priority and in fact as long as he has ticked the boxes and done his job my well being and opinions are not valid.

I feel like my salary matches my costs well. I am able to live close to work, even though it is quite an affluent and expensive area. If i qualified for travel expenses then that would be an adequate amount. I am able to fully fund my lifestyle on my own with very little help from my parents.

I have heard of many opportunities that do come up outside of work, unfortunately these are not common knowledge and I have not yet been asked or gone to many events or clubs etc. outside of work.

No

I would recommend to a friend if the training was brought up to a good standard. At the moment I would not recommend due to the quality of the training provided.

Make sure that you read, interpret and ask as many questions about the job roles before you choose where you would like to work. This is a massive part of the apprenticeship and I would not like anyone else to fall into the trap that I did.