Apprentice Review

I am a year two apprentice at a 3-floor salon in the heart of St Ives, Cambridgeshire. My day to day job includes getting and checking in clients, preparing them for their appointment by seating them at a salon chair, getting them gowned up for their service and offering a beverage if they would like one. I also shampoo, blowdry and tone clients hair when needed to by a stylist as well as offering treatments and product recommendations. I also have my own clients on the salon floor. I also keep the salon tidy and running efficiently.

I have learnt many skills and improved upon many as well. I have learned cutting, colouring and styling techniques as well as growing my confidence and my ability to communicate and work well in a large team in a fast paced environment. I have also improved on personal skills such as money and time management.

I have immensely enjoyed my time as an apprentice in the Hairdressing industry as I have not only gained a valuable trade skill, but I have been on courses, mingled with excellent stylists and picked their brains for tips and techniques as well as putting my own name out there into the world.

My programmed has been fairly well structured. I'm sure it would have been even better had a pandemic not occurred half way through my training programme and caused some major disruptions! Even then my tutor kept me going with online classes and calls, and my boss kept my brain ticking with colour courses and seminars.

I gain a lot of support from my employer and the team around me. As they are always willing to take the time to show me new things and help me through the things that I am struggling with when they have the time. They have been very good to me throughout my course.

I get alpt of support from my trainer provider towards my qualifications as she visits me every week to see my skills and see how I am improving and what I can do to make it better and improve upon it even more. She is also in close contact with my employer so that they know what I have to do to improve as well.

I feel that my qualification help me to perform better in my role as I am gaining even more knowledge and experience than I would be going to college one day a week. I also get one to one tutoring once a week instead of in a classroom of thirty, which helps to show me where I can improve.

I am often told about courses, seminars, live chats and even product release parties that are available to me as an apprentice. Such as Pulp Riot Education, Wella Education, and GHD product parties. As a team we also go often to team building exercises and excursions to make us better and closer as a team.

Yes

The close 1:1 training has been much better for myself than going to college and only getting that small amount of feedback from a teacher. With a one to one tutor I am able to have more focus on my own work and how I can improve upon myself.

The advice that I would give to them would be to research that its the right course for what you want to train in and to put your all in to it if its really want ypu want to do. The more you put in to the education the more you will get out of it.