As part of National Apprenticeship Week, Ellie and Emma have been reflecting on their first six months as apprentices at Rambutan…
This week is National Apprenticeship Week (7-13 February), a great opportunity to celebrate and highlight the importance of apprentices. This year’s focus is ‘building the future’, which not only looks at the value gained by the apprentice, but also their employer.
Although we’re both doing different apprenticeships (Junior Management Consultant and Marketing), we’ve already gained invaluable learnings and experiences, both on our courses and within Rambutan. From our perspective, we’ve had the opportunity to put our learnings into practice, almost instantly, including:
• how best to manage our time
• knowledge of our job roles
• how to facilitate a group meeting
• understanding client needs
• the importance of our values
We could go on, but this gives you an idea of just how much we’ve gained so far and there’s so much more to come on our apprenticeship journey. If this is what we’ve already achieved, imagine what we’ll be saying another six months down the line!
We asked David (one of Rambutan’s founders) what value he believes Rambutan has gained from employing apprentices, not only now but over the last few years. One of his key takeaways is that apprentices are like a breath of fresh air to the business, often bringing new ideas and refreshing perspectives. He also said that he sees us as a Consultant and a Marketeer, often forgetting we’re still apprentices. David emphasised the importance of having an apprentice as being like a two-way street: as long as you invest your time and resources to mentor your apprentice (and they appreciate and take advantage of every opportunity), they’ll soon become a fully-fledged member of your team.
Rambutan involves us in all work, both internally and externally, just like everyone else. Whilst apprenticeships aren’t seen as the traditional route, we believe we wouldn’t have gained such valuable experience so early on in building our career and future without them!
