Apprenticeship Reforms Officer Review

I've never felt as motivated as I do now. I wake up everyday knowing that what I am doing is helping. The placement has really showed me the vast variety of working styles and how each style can compliment one another. It's been an eye opening experience that I feel fortunate to have had.

My colleagues were some of the warmest and friendliest people out there! The team acted like a family and were willing to help anyone who needed it. I felt great being part of it. We were treated as equals and our ideas were valued and encouraged. I owe a lot of my learning and development to the team particularly my manager.

My manager has been fantastic. I would score much higher if I could. If I needed anything, my manager made time. I feel like my manager acted as a mentor and helped to guide me and teach me new skills. I was supported in all tasks and guided when I was unsure.

My job role included a wide variety of tasks. On occasions I would find myself extremely busy and other times not so. Throughout my placement I managed to organise my workload to create a consistent amount of tasks per day. At times where I did want more work, I would only need to ask.

I was given more and more responsibility of tasks and projects the further I got into the placement. Throughout the year, I gradually gained ownership of some of the projects. I was given responsibility of organising my own workload to ensure that I could tailor it to my own individual working style.

I was able to attend a large variety of training courses. My department encouraged development within the role and also looked at providing us with transferable skills that could be used later on in our career. I feel more confident about my career goals as I now know that this is something that I want to do.

The office was open plan, and therefore you were able to talk to and interact with other departments.

At the beginning I found myself lost, which I had expected, we had had a 2 week induction which was great for learning the foundations of the business but I wasn't sure on how some of it linked to my role. When we moved into our departments we were introduced to the teams and given projects and work. After I had found my feet, I was assigned more work and gained the structure I needed.

I couldn't have predicted how interested and passionate my team were about training and developing us. The volume of training that I received was fair higher than I could have anticipated. Volvo Group is passionate about making sure people reach their full potential. I was offered Instructor-led training as well as less formal training with the team throughout my placement.

I would like to say that there is an opportunity to return but at this point in time I'm unsure. I would have liked to have come back. It would have been nice for there to be an active graduate scheme within the UK. It is something that I feel would benefit Volvo Group.

Whilst I have been on placement, I have met up with some of the placement students outside of work on numerous occasions. I am aware that some of the placement students who lived locally had met up on multiple occasions. However, I did commute in so it wasn't as easy to get involved in these arrangements.

I didn't live in the local area, outside of Warwick

I commuted in but the closest place for nightlife is in Leamington Spa

As I lived outside of Warwick I didn't look into this as much, but I do know that there was a social club that has plenty of opportunities for external activities.