Administration assistant Review

My role was to be the Administrator for the business. This involved having direct contact via email and telephone with the clients as well as helping to organise the events we ran. The event management side consisted of arranging travel and accommodation as well as workshop materials.

Communication skills was a massive part of the job role and so I had to remain professional throughout as my comments directly reflected the business. Through the apprenticeship I learnt the type of language to use, for example how to sound more convincing in a sales call. Moreover, my ICT skills were worked on everyday as my work was primarily carried out on the computer. Patience with the clients was key for me because there were times when customers were late replying to my emails. This would result in the organisation of events being less productive as they couldn't move forward without the clients response. This also tort me to be resilient as I always needed to keep trying to make contact. Lastly, I needed to constantly improve my time management skills as workshop materials needed to be ordered weeks and sometimes months in advance.

I enjoyed the apprenticeship because of the skills it tort me. It isn't a job I plan to do for the rest of my working career however, I appreciate what I obtained from it. I believe experience is key and my apprenticeship gave me not only skills and qualifications, but useful workplace experience.

I knew the work I was doing was valued because without my actions, the business would run less effectively. This is because my colleagues were able to focus on improving the business as opposed to running it which allowed it to develop for the future. They would not be able to do this without me seeing through the business's daily, needed tasks. I was defiantly valued as I was a valuable asset.

As the business was a small one we each needed to run our own area of the business. I quite enjoyed getting to run my own department, especially since I had only come in at an apprentice level. However, running the business in this way did have pros and cons. For example, with each of us working on separate business functions we were able to complete various tasks which allowed us to complete a good range of jobs. On the other hand, these tasks could be quite challenging as you'd have to complete them by yourself and could share out the work with other employees.

The training came in different formats; the one I most often received was learning independently. As each employee was busy in their own fields, from time to time I'd have to make mistakes in order to learn how things should function for the future. However, to ensure that vital mistakes weren't made, my colleagues would be at hand for any questions I had. The college were very useful and were willing to go above and beyond in order to help me set and achieve goals that could only be done through training.

Support was given as questions were answered when I needed them. The support aspect would have been a lot better had there been another employee working in the same field as me. Although, as mentioned previously, this would be difficult to do as we weren't a large company.

The salary was very good and allowed me to cover the costs of travel, rent and other expenses whilst still allowing me to have some spending/saving money at the end. I was earning far more than the average apprenticeship pays which i very much appreciated.

There are opportunities outside of work, for example I was allowed to visit one of the events I would be organising. However, the work was always office based so there weren't opportunities to have a "field day".

Yes

This is difficult to say as I would depend on what the individual is looking for in their career. Knowing my friends personally I would recommend the job for them however I'm not sure it's totally right for them. I would recommend the apprenticeship generally though. I would recommend the job due to the skills and experience obtained. What I learnt was transferable and can be taken with me in any employment I work with in future. Furthermore, the salary was just what I was looking for and would be great for someone at my age or younger.

The application process was quick and smooth and interviews were set up immediately. Communication was great which ensured I could be in constant contact if needed.