Packaging Technology Apprentice Review

I have recently moved to a new placement within my team in our advanced manufacturing centre where I am training to become operational on multiple machines. Before this placement, I worked in the labs, testing our packaging, and with the design team where I learnt how our packaging is developed. My placements in the team mean my days are always different and I always get to try something new and explore new areas of my role.

In my time at Unilever I have developed many skills, including how to operate machines on a packaging line, how to operate machines and capture data in our lab and how to use design softwares like Keyshot, NX and the Adobe Apps. I have also developed my communication and presenting skills when organising and participating in team meetings, which as also helped to improve my confidence a lot.

I love working in Unilever, and I feel I have found an area of work that I would like to continue to work in, even after my apprenticeship. I get to try new things as my team rotate my placements, allowing me to develop many useful skillsets. I recieve lots of support from Unilever and my Univesity team to help me work and study at the same time. Unilever also help to match up what I'm involved in to work well with what I'm studying at University. We have a lot of fun as a team and everyone is so helpful and approachable. I have really enjoyed everything I have been involved in throughout my apprenticeship so far.

My apprenticeship programme is fairly well organised, however sometimes there can be some slight issues with our University course as it is a unique course created for me and one other apprentice. Despite this, any problems we have are usually fixed very quickly and we are given plenty of time to catch up with coursework etc.

My employer gives me complete support with regards to work and University life. We receive study days for us to prepare for exams and exam days. Unilever has allowed me to attend all my lectures and any optional tutorials I wished to attend. In regards to my wellbeing, Unilever has plenty of tools we can use if necessary, some involving external companies we can contact regarding emotional and mental health. We have great access to our occupational health centre, gym and other programmes for our physical health too.

Our course leaders provide support for any concerns we have regarding deadlines or conflicting schedules. We have multiple people we can contact for each module and plenty of material to use for revising. Sometimes we can have access issues, due to our course being unique, however these are usually solved quickly and we are given enough time to catch up with anything we have missed.

While my role in work gives me great practical experience and a good amount of understanding for processes and materials etc, our course in University allows us to go more in depth to how materials (such as metals and plastics) behave, what other processes are available and what the different processes can be used to produce. Sometimes things we have learnt on our course allow us to bring back new ideas or solutions to our team.

Our work has plenty of clubs for us to get involved with, ranging from a running club to a site choir, even a genealogy club. We can also work to arrange clubs we feel are missing or that a lot of people would enjoy. We have challanges and activities that occur around Christmas and Easter, and team building activities throughout the enitre year.

Yes

Unilever is a really friendly and supportive place to work, especially when (like me) you have never had a job before. There are plenty of roles available to people of every talent, and the apprenticeship programmes they offer (in my opinion) are hard to match. Unilever and the Universities they work with offer great courses and support for these. I always feel like I'm learning something new everyday and I'm far from running out of things that I'm interested in exploring more in my role.

It sounds hard, but don't be too nervous. Honestly the people who work here are great, and really easy to talk to. I had never done an interview before Unilever and felt really nervous, but when I got in the room I felt a lot more at ease. Sometimes people aren't always looking for a specifc answer either, so don't panic too much if you're not quite sure on an answer to a problem. They just want to see how you work around a problem, so relax and show them.