CS Jobs product and support team Review

My role as a product design and developer an support team officer for the civil service jobs website, is not what I was expecting when joining the business admin apprenticeship. On a day-to-day basis I implement system changes, test code, liaise with our site suppliers and support everyday users of both the candidate site and the applicant tracking system (ATS). there are currently 300,000+ registered users of the candidate site and 50,000+ on the ATS, so it is a large operation with a very small team - thus always very busy.

I have learnt so much about IT and digital skills during my time here. As well as government standards for website design and user research, going on courses to cover the basics and developing my knowledge along side experienced colleagues.

I enjoy my job role, however the programme itself has not been enjoyable. The learning provider have been unorganised and quite frankly useless. For my HNC, my first tutor left because he was receiving too many complaints from students and never marked a piece of work, leaving the next tutor to mark it all - she is still catching up a year later. For my NVQ, my tutor ~(who was actually pretty good) left because of the way the company treat their employees leaving our group without an NVQ tutor from early December to late march 3 months before we are supposed to finish the course.

My department CSR is hosted officially by HMRC and in part by cabinet office and we don't often feel valued as a department by HMRC. Although their ways of Performance management are good, and great work is always recognised.

Very poorly. At the start it was worse, and I must admit it has gotten better over the last year, however the set up of the apprentices was not well managed by the learning provider or the department running the scheme.

This is a hard question for me. I dropped out of the HNC because of the lack of support from the provider so take what you will from that. The NVQ hasn't felt supported in recent months because of the lack of tutor, however before she left I felt very supported in that.

I feel really well supported by my managers and the wider team in both my apprenticeship and my job role. They are always available to help or advise and I feel really lucky to have been placed in my team.

I live in Bristol, where renting a bedroom in a house-share costs between £500 - £600. I know of people in London who get house-shares cheaper than this. My basic HMRC EO salary just about covers my costs after running a car and renting accommodation, however I rarely have much disposable after these - admittedly though I could be better with money.

In all honesty my job is so full on, I usually work 2 hours extra most days; 7am-5pm so in evenings I don't feel like I want to explore what other clubs or options there are available through work. And at weekends I try to focus as much as possible on NVQ work. So apart from the team Christmas meal and odd team event, I'm not interested in what else there is available to me through work. I volunteer at girl guides once a week and that's enough for me.

Yes

I think that working for the civil service is a stable and respectable career and the apprenticeship programmes are great for grads and non-grads alike.

Don't worry about how long it takes to on-board you - the process is very slow due to all the checks and will often be slower than expected - they've not forgotten about you. Applying is annoying due to the government's competence statements you have to provide. They're unlike anything else in the private sector and you've just got to practise them - submit a few fake applications to get feedback first if you're not used to writing the statements.