Apprentice at Advanced Year 3 Review

I use Access and excel and obtain the data by running reports in Radar and SAP. I also take care of Central Billing which means having to build a relationship with our fleet customers such as Halfords and Royal Mail however I also have to maintain a good relationship with our dealers as when queries occur from fleet about an invoice I will have to talk with the dealers to work out the problem. I process order and special dealers received from the dealers, last month I received 1200 orders and these have to be processed and logged depending on the types of promotion.

I have learnt how to deal with difficult problems start to finish and how to deal with difficult people. I have also learnt that it is important to log everything you do as you may need to come back to it at some stage. I have also aquired more confidence when being professional and dealing with a wide range and variety of clients and customers in order to stay mature and be a good worker.

I enjoy the work I complete and feel challenged every day. I feel that without my team my time here would not be the same, everyone is helpful and makes time for you. The company is an excellent company to work for and I feel supported every step of the way by my colleagues and HR. However, the company culture over busy season was a bit too time pressured as we were short of staff meaning lots of overtime was being worked.

My counselling manager is amazingly brilliant, she is supportive & understanding. The feedback system in place enables the senior & manager on each job to provide their own view of my performance, this is very helpful & shows that Advanced is commited to enabling people to develop. When working on each job I do feel involved and as though I am contributing, this helps me to feel valued.

The induction and training at the start of the programme was very good and we have meetings with the assesor approximately every 6 weeks. We always know what tasks we need to complete and when the deadline is. The appraisal system at works makes it easy to obtain feedback from colleagues so you can develop further.

The assesors are very good. Although they are always on your back chasing work they ensure that you stay on track and get things done on time. The online classrooms are very good and helpful and I also found it easy to contact a tutor if needed. They also make sure that the amount of work that you're doing is brilliant for your own personal progress in order to make sure that you're on top of things and then some.

The managers I have worked for have been great, they are approachable, friendly & always willing to help/explain things if and when needed. Whilst I have not had to much involvement with the HR team, whenever I have they have been helpful & friendly. On joining Advanced every trainee is assigned a 'buddy' who has been through exactly what we are going through & can therefore offer support & advice. Support is easily available and can be relied on as much or as little as one wants.

The starting salary enables me to meet all costs that I incur, whilst this is the case, it is reassuring to know that my salary will increase over time, as my grade lowers & experience increases. This is good to know since there is a known structure on how pay icnreases within Advanced so it's very ehlpful to see and track hom much you'll be earning if you stick with the company and the difference this is between other companies.

there are christmas and other seasonal events which enables networking with other trainees at several firms in the South. these events are well organised and fun. There are company sport teams, with internal tournaments as well as matches against other firms. There are company events annually.I quite enjoy it because you can meet other people that you don't work with on a day to day basis which is really nice.

Yes

It's an absolutely great company to work for and everyone treats you like an equal. You're made to feel very welcomed and people want to take you under their wing since they see that you're almost like the next "generation" within Advanced which just makes you feel like Advanced is the kind of company that you just wanna grow with you know.

Learn about the company before you start the application process and be yourself. I feel i would have liked to have known more about the different departments when making the choice of which department I would have liked to be in. For example parts and service was a choice however I didn’t feel I knew enough about the department to make a definite decision.