Information Technology Apprentice Review

Day to day can be different. Sometimes its full development where i am working by myself to create applications/websites. Some days it negotiating with internal customers to get their requirements for projects. And sometimes is helping people around the office with their general IT issues. All are fun and bring different skills

Throughout the apprenticeship I have learned many skills. A lot of these skills I would have not learned at university alone so the apprenticeship was good for that. These are technical and soft skills. The main one would be SQL server as I would say I am proficient and confident I would be able to support business needs with these skills. For soft skills, my communication has improved as I am more willing to reach out to people and communicate with colleagues.

The apprenticeship with Siemens has been enjoyable throughout the 4 years. The 2 years with covid were a struggle at times as sometimes i felt disconnected from the workplace. But now with the country re-opening its starting to feel like before again. Sometimes it feels like a drag or a chore but that is expected with any job after a long time.

The structure of the apprenticeship at Siemens is pretty poor. I was lucky as I was in a set team and had areas of responsibility but for my friends who did rotations, they weren't so lucky. Normally, dept heads had no idea apprentices were joining their team so they went with no work for weeks at a time. There is no collaboration between apprentices for projects or anything. We didn't have much communication with anyone for the management team for a good year.

My line manager was extremely helpful and got me settled into the business very quickly. He supported me throughout my apprenticeship with technical things and any business related issues I faced. However, as a whole company, as explained there was little structure to the scheme. I never went on any mandatory courses (unlike the engineering apprentices) and it felt kind of my responsibility to find training. I didnt end up receiving much internal training due to this as I felt guilty spending money on training (that was sometimes almost 1/4 of my yearly wage) if it wasnt going to be that relevant. I would have been great for the courses to be vetted and chosen for me so I knew i was going to learn relevant skills from the training.

MMU were good with helping me towards the qualification. I had support from tutors that tracked my progress and caught up with me on my general wellbeing. The lecturers were very helpful (for uni lecturers it seems) and provided support with assignments when needed and were happy to go out their way.

The qualification itself is nice to gain as it is an accredited degree but the course for me was a bit basic. I feel like some stuff I learnt was good and will help me in the workplace but other stuff was a bit useless or basic. Most technical stuff that i have picked up has been through work not uni.

At work their are some sports events that are ran once a week, however I have not attended those. Before covid, the apprentices were pretty good at setting up social events but due to covid we have been pretty poor and I have not socialised with the new apprentices at all really. Siemens themselves have provided no support at setting up networking events for apprentices which is very disappointing

Yes

Although Siemens has its downsides (as mentioned in other questions) it has a friendly workplace environment and is a great start to a career. I have been able to get stuck in with some interesting projects over the 4 years I have worked here and gave me a great baseline to be able to move into a more specialised role.

If I was apply to Siemens for an apprenticeship, I would defiantly say do not go into the interview thinking the hiring manager expects you to know it all. When we look for candidates we are looking for people with a growth mindset who can learn the skills and responsibilities needed for the role. It is also good to show that you have a passion in what you are applying for. For example: you have created a snake game in your own time. This shows us that you are willing to apply what you have learnt at school and try to improve yourself.