Apprentice Technician Review

My role as a technician apprentice is to assist the manufacturing of parts on the shop floor, this can be either solving problems, raising non-conformance reports, creating rework tickets for parts to be altered so that they can conform with tolerances, you also get projects to work on throughout your time which can contribute to the efficiency of the business.

Skills are very important in the workplace whether that is communication skills or team working skills to give a couple of examples, before starting my apprenticeship my communication skills were rather lacking but thanks to my job role I am able to improve those as I have to call or email other members of staff which allows me to improve, you can also improve your team work skills as you progress on projects with other people.

The apprenticeship that I am enrolled on, I find very enjoyable, this is due to the work environment and the work that I am doing, you can work with a lot of very helpful and easy to talk to people, I have also found that people are willing to help if you so need it which is very useful.

The organisation of the program is well done, you change your placement every 4 months and complete at least one NVQ unit, the organisation could be improved by allowing adding more staff to look over the NVQ folders as the 50% and 100% completion of your folder gets you a pay rise however there is only one person checking the folders so it can take a while to receive your folder back in order to make improvements.

You can receive a lot of support from the company in terms of training but this is all based on whether that person is busy or not, if you have questions on your NVQ to ask your assessor, these can be answered quickly or can take a while depending on how much work they have or whether they know the answer to your question.

For your NVQ work you can receive a lot of support from your colleagues and your assessors as they are keen to help you complete your unit, through the instructions for jobs and projects, however if you take a national certificate during the working week at a college the help isn't that great as you are expected to complete it in your own time, however some managers will allow you to work on it during works time but that all based on how busy you are.

The qualifications that are provided help a lot in terms of allowing you to perform better, this is due to the fact that your qualifications are relevant to what you are doing and therefore give you a better understanding of the work that you are doing. Your NVQ qualification gives you the ability to learn different roles that other apprenticeships wouldn't offer.

Within work there are a few extra curricular activities that you can partake in, these can often be running marathons as part of a team to raise money for charity, a lot of the people you work with can end up having similar interests as you allowing you to join in what they do outside of work which I find great.

Yes

I would recommend Siemens to a friend as I find them a great employer, the work you do is interesting, but not just that, the ability to change job role every four months on the apprenticeships is brilliant as it allows you to get a good overview of the business and allows you to get more experience and knowledge for the job.

For other people applying for Siemens I would recommend that they take the time and effort to apply, use any knowledge of engineering within your application, add any hobbies that you have as this can often show them any skills that you have which would be useful within the company.