Rating

7.8/10
  • 1. Please give an overview of your role and what this involves on a day-to-day basis:
  • I am an apprentice technician working towards engineering project management. Day to day I manage small projects which enables me to pick up skills in management, project management and software such as Microsoft Project. I am given a lot of responsibility to manage my workload and to work on active projects that the company will benefit from. I get the chance to interact with a vast range of colleagues from engineers and technicians to senior management. I have a weekly progress update with my line manager to ensure she knows what I have been working on.

    10/10

  • 2. Have you learnt any new skills or developed existing skills?
  • I have been able to complete a PEO qualification as well as BTEC and a level 3 NVQ. I have been on a vast range of internal training courses, including technical skills such as soldering and using machinery to soft skills such as 8D problem solving and DISC personality profile training. I have also been on an external training course at City and Guilds about championing apprenticeships. I have picked up many skills on the job, both technical and professional that have related to the various jobs I have completed during my rotations around the company.

    9/10

  • 3. To what extent do you enjoy your programme?
  • I have thoroughly enjoyed my time on my apprenticeship because everybody that I have worked with so far has been very supportive and keen to help with my development. Everybody has been very willing to share their knowledge and their skills with me and have given me good responsibilities. The company has been very supportive as well. They have developed new apprentice placements to suit my aspirations and I am very hopeful that I will be supported to continue my education to degree level after the completion of my apprenticeship.

    8/10

  • 4. How valued do you feel by Teledyne/E2V?
  • I think that our apprentice manager is supportive but he tries to do too much for too many people, meaning that he can't always give full support and effort into each individual apprentice. You can tell that he really does care and wants to give everybody his best but realistically he can't. This means that he doesn't get the chance to come and see what we do day to day and only really gets to know the apprentices who have the time to go and visit him regularly. The company holds an annual apprentice awards event which is a really good way of recognising people but you can always predict who the winners will be because they are the ones who have time to go and shout about what they do - there are others who might do more work but quietly get on with it and nobody is there to give them the recognition they need. I have always felt valued by the team that I work with within my placements as they give me jobs that are important. However I haven't always felt valued within the apprenticeship scheme, especially due to the fact that my year group had a bad stigma and people thought of us negatively as a group rather than the individuals. This meant that I wanted to separate myself from my year group and went through a stage where I wasn't proud to be known as an apprentice because I wanted to be known for the things I do rather than the things that members of the group has done in the past. I feel that we didn't get the opportunity to prove that we weren't as bad as everybody seemed to think until right at the end of our three years because our manager didn't trust us to do the tasks that would prove that we were a good team. I have had the chance to get involved with two external recognition schemes - the Brathay Apprentice Challenge and the National Apprenticeship Service Apprentice Champion Award. My manager has been very supportive with both of these things and has helped me with both as much as he can.

    5/10

  • 5. How well organised/structured is your programme?
  • Our programme is very well structured all the way through, from the rigorous application process, to the end of the scheme. We have a clearly laid out induction training month, college block release and day release and rotations around the company which are followed by interviews and a final placement. We did however have a rocky start as the college weren't able to enrol us to begin our BTEC in September as planned and we had to wait until January to do this. Shortly after starting our BTEC we transferred to a different college due to issues we had had at the first college. There is a very good mentoring system for technical and business mentors but not many people know it is available. I found out about it in the last year of my apprenticeship and once I was matched with a business mentor I benefited from the work we did together massively. It allowed me to become clearer about the path I wanted to take in the future and the career path I should follow to get to my newly set out goals. In my placement I have a mentor who I regularly meet with to discuss the work I have completed and the benefit I get out of it. She is also helping me with my APMP course by going over the units involved and encouraging me to try practice questions in preparation for the exam that will be at the end of my course.

    7/10

  • 6a. How much support do you receive from your training provider?
  • I had two training providers from different colleges (one for PEO and BTEC and another for NVQ) My NVQ assessor would visit me on site to discuss my progress on the course and mark the work I completed. She would visit regularly to start with and then we started to have long periods when we didn't hear anything about when she was next due to visit. I managed to complete my NVQ work a year ahead of schedule and had to wait 5-6 months for the assessor to mark it, when there should have been a turnaround time of a month maximum. It was signed off nearly three months ago now and I still haven't received my certification. We began our BTEC in January rather than September, due to the fact that the college had problems enrolling us in time to start the course in September. We had very bad experiences of poor teaching standards, work being lost and work not being marked. For this reason we decided to transfer our BTEC to a different college. This college had teething problems due to the fact that we had to transfer over our engineering project unit that we had already done half of. This lead to many problems and lack of communication meant that the majority of the class got much lower grades than predicted. After this unit was complete, the training was much better and two of our tutors were particularly fantastic at teaching and were extremely supportive. I feel that I have only managed to achieve my distinction ** in my BTEC qualification due to a high level of personal motivation an commitment to self-study outside of college in my own time.

    6/10

  • 6b. How much support do you receive from your employer?
  • I have had a fair amount of support from my employer. I have had help to find my strengths and developed a placement to suit my strengths. My HR advisors have always been very supportive of me and have done everything they can to ensure I get as much benefit out of my apprenticeship as possible. Support is very easy to access and it is clear where to go when support is needed. When I have had problems there has been a lot of guidance in the support network to allow me to fix the problems.

    9/10

  • 7. How well does your salary/package meet your costs?
  • My salary is fairly good. I am paid enough to be able to opt to put a proportion of my monthly salary into a Share Save scheme and a pension. I currently live at home so don't really have any living costs but I wouldn't be able to afford to move out on my current salary. I was paid enough to be able to pay for driving lessons, a test and to keep my car running and insured. I am paid enough to satisfy my social costs.

    6/10

  • 8. Are there many opportunities outside of work?
  • The company has held a lot of events, from charity bowling, corporate days and celebrating days such as Women in Engineering Day, to going to career events and running activities in schools. We had the chance to take part in the Brathay Apprentice Challenge which got us involved in working with the local community. The location of our site is very good, it is walking distance from the town centre which has a lot to do in it. There are plenty of leisure and sports clubs around, we even get a small discount at one of the local gyms. When I wasn't working I was at school. I also did activities after school which I have been able to continue. These include being a Brownie leader, racing cars and performing in musical theatre

    10/10

  • 9. Would you recommend Teledyne/E2V to a friend?
  • Yes


  • 9b. Why?
  • Working at this company has given me the opportunity to find out what field of engineering my skills and abilities best suit, through working in a range of different placements. The general environment is very supportive and I look forward to going to work every single day. Apprentices are given a lot of responsibility and there is a good level of trust that apprentices will be able to carry out work to a good standard. The support and trust that e2v invest in me has made me very loyal to the company and proud to represent them at the many events I have been invited to attend.


  • 10. What tips or advice would you give to others applying to Teledyne/E2V?
  • I think that the best way to be successful in the application process is to be yourself. Come prepared with answers to all generic interview questions and ensure to mention all big achievements you have made. If you have never had a job before then you can draw on other experiences you have had, they just want to know that you are able to do the things that the questions are asking. If you get through to the face to face interview it makes a good impact if you bring something physical with you (this could include a relevant project you worked on at school). This makes the conversation more interesting and memorable. Remember that on an assessment day you are being assessed from the moment you step on site to the minute you leave so behave in a professional manner at all times.


Details

Level 3 Apprenticeship

Engineering

East of England

April 2017


View More Reviews
Recruiting? See how we can help you