August is exam results month, signaling the next step towards the job of choice for many young people. However, the career you find yourself in may not be the one you initially envisaged, or you may decide to take a different route into employment. We talked to Taabali Rauf, our Property Admin Assistant, about his Modern Apprenticeship and working with VMH.
“At school I had no idea what I wanted to do when I left. I knew that it might be admin related but I didn’t know what I would end up doing. University was always the go-to option but the closer I got to finishing high school, the more I wanted to do something else, especially after I went through Covid.”
“I remember dreading having to open my results and not wanting to tell my parents that they even came but they already knew. When I got my results on that day, I still did good enough that I didn’t have to worry about them, but I knew I could have done better.”
“During my last year at high school, I did something called Young Enterprise where you and a few other people get together as a group and start up your own business during a free period. This was something I mentioned to my careers advisor at the time and they suggested work-based routes that I could take which don’t take you out of education, as I still wanted to stay in education after leaving high school. I didn’t know anyone who had taken this sort of path which made me a bit nervous as I had no one to ask what it was like. I thought it might be a good idea as I wouldn’t have to sit in a room all day just taking in information without being able to use it in a more practical sense, as that was something I wasn’t keen on after spending the whole of Covid just in online classes.”
“The way my apprenticeship worked was that once a month, for a week, I would be in online classes from home, rather than work, so I could have more peace. The rest of the time I would be working. Because the apprenticeship involves working and learning, I would take what I learned from working one week and apply it to my online classes the next and vice versa which is what I wanted as it felt like I was using what I had learned.”
“When I began looking into apprenticeships, though I knew it would be something admin related, a law firm wasn’t the first place that I thought of. I decided I would wait on a reply rather than applying to a lot at once – it’s good that I did, as VMH got back to me and, after an interview, I became the office’s Modern Apprentice.”
“The places where you work during the apprenticeship don’t always offer you a job at the end – I think it mainly depends on the workplace’s needs and how you were during your apprenticeship, which lasted for just under a year for me.”
“I learned many skills such as Digital Information Management/Digital Network Environments but the majority of the skills I learned directly from the workplace. I feel like this made me more confident as a person as I was applying those skills in practice almost immediately.”
“If anyone is thinking about doing an apprenticeship, I would say find the right one for you and give it a go. If you feel like you want to do something that doesn’t involve classroom learning the majority of the time, but don’t feel like you’re at a stage where you want to leave education, it’s a great way to secure some experience and a job.”
“The best thing I’ve experienced during my time with VMH is the amount of support I’ve had from everyone. Everyone was willing to help me, regardless of how busy they were, which helped my learning process and meant I never felt alone.”