Marketing Apprentice Review

I am a marketing apprentice I work for cogent however my host employer is Pfizer Uk Limited. My daily tasks are to review Pfizer's websites and make sure people are suing them and getting the information that we want them to get. I have daily interactions with my colleagues in Pfizer and I have almost daily interaction with my cogent representative.

I have learnt lots of new skills especially professional skills such as communication and leadership. I have had courses and tests that cogent have provided for me so I know about them and how the process works. I have also learnt lots about holiday and expenses through cogent and how they work and how I need to go about them.

I enjoy the programme a lot however I have had a few issues with cogent and not being able to get in touch with them and therefore having to wait to get on with things. I had a lot of issues at the start when cogent kept sending me the wrong contract and had to keep renewing it.

I don't really feel that valued because I don't get to hear from them a lot. I get a call every 3 months where we go through what ive been doing and how I am getting on but that is about it I don't really get any help along the way day to day.

The programme seems very organised as cogent set it out in the beginning however when something goes wrong I don't feel like there is many people I can go to get help straight away because they all take a long time to reply to any queries I have. It is split into three parts but cogent are meant to keep it all structured but I don't believe they do.

I like the material and the lectures are good with thorough content and questions I can do to help me however whenever I have a specific question to ask someone I can never get through to them and that stops me form progressing with any of my work or my tasks that have been set.

I don't think I receive enough support from cogent. They are meant to be the middle person between my host employer and my training provider however I feel I end up chasing my training provider myself instead of anyone else doing it which takes away time from my studying and my work. And when I have an issue no one from cogent seems to reply for a while.

My salary is not great at all. I can just about pay for my travel and living expenses and have a little money left over for food and essential's. For the time and work that I do I don't think the salary is great as it is the lowest of the lowest out there even against different companies.

I don't see cogent a lot so don't have any opportunities with them. They have offered us half price at the gym which is good but even when I tried to use that there was loads of issues and no one seemed to want to help sort them or even know how or their end.

No

Considering they are a middle person between the employee host employee and training provider they never seem to be around and as the employee you seem to end up chasing everything cogent should know and chase for you and the fore I don't know why the company pays them as the employee almost does their job for them.

Be yourself and open, understand that cogent are the middle people and do the evaluation of whether they think you would be a good employee and look at your grades and qualifications more than experience as they are recruiting for the host employer. Be enthusiastic and show them who you are and why you want to work there and what you can bring.