Apprentice Review

I am currently in a rotational degree apprenticeship working for Visa, whereby I move placements every six months in order to gain a wide range of Visa related experience. I am currently working in a digital product risk team, communicating with clients, managing products and helping develop new and innovative ways to sell our products.

Not only have i developed many skills since leaving sixth form and joining VISA, but I have also gained, in my opinion, a greater sense of professionalism as well. Through training courses- both external and internal, I have also gained many practical skills that I otherwise wouldn't have, by being exposed to a wide range of job roles.

I enjoy the programme here at VISA because I feel as if it has been of great value to me from both an educational perspective and a professional standpoint. I feel i now have a far better idea of the style/type of job role I enjoy and thrive at, which i otherwise wouldn't have gotten in a traditional job.

I feel very valued at VISA for many reasons. Not only do VISA make its employees feel valuable through the activities and constant different kinds of entertainment for each individual team, but also because i am gaining a degree whilst i work (because they allow for study time) without gaining the debt it comes with!

Everything in this programme is very structured, the in-house training, the University workshops, and the mentoring support system both from Visa and our education provider. There is constant support available to all employees and also constant additional training going on that can be booked at very late notice.

We receive a good amount of support from our training provider because of many reasons. Every 10 week module, we have two separate two-day workshops that aim to provide sounder knowledge of the current assignment and help build upon our educational piece for that module. As well as this, every so often we have mentoring coaches that come in to assess our performance and activity, but also to see if we have any possible concerns.

From VISA, we also get as much support as we need, not only from managers and work colleagues, but also from the other apprentices and our talent manager. VISA have quite an extensive support system for all of its employees with guidance for all sorts of possible problems an individual may have.

My salary/package does very well compared to other degree apprenticeships which is helpful as living and working in London can be very expensive. My commute into work, food expenses and other daily costs can all be comfortably covered by the salary that I receive.

One of the key highlights in this apprenticeship scheme in my opinion is the fact that we have soo much opportunity to have workshops, additional training, activities and engage with others doing similar schemes whilst we share our experiences.

Yes

Because not only is the money good, the educations free and the degree just happens to be relevant to my skillset- the experience and opportunity that i have gained from being here i believe is better and more beneficial to me than having gone to University.

The whole process is quite vigorous and long-winded, however, if you're determined to get a job, not just at Visa, but anywhere- be charismatically professional, show that you're willing to go the extra mile and that you are a hard worker, now how you choose to show this is entirely up to you!