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I always wanted to do an apprenticeship so that I can study and gain a qualification whilst being supported financially, by being paid a full-time salary, and gaining crucial work experience in business. I have already had invaluable experience working at Jisc, such as public speaking at Digifest 2023 and filming apprenticeship videos that will teach me skills to help me throughout my career and to achieve my level 4 CIPS qualification.
My job is to help support the procurement team at Jisc, who are responsible for ensuring that the services and goods obtained from external suppliers are at the right quality and standard, provide best value for money and act compliantly within the rules and processes necessary. We follow the whole life cycle from identifying the needs of the good/service to helping create the contract. My day-to-day work varies from collecting data & presenting them, evaluating supplier bids, sending out ITT/ITQ (Invitations to Tender/Invitation to Quote), mapping processes and going to college weekly.
I started my apprenticeship a year ago in September 2022 and I have had lots of highlights since then, but my favourite highlight has been speaking at Digifest, in March 2023 which is one of our conferences we run for our members about reimagined learning, teaching and research. I have also been part of a Prospects case study video on apprenticeships which gave me experience in filming content and being interviewed in front of a camera.
I have had many challenges during my apprenticeship. My exams have been difficult as I have had lots to learn and understand in short amounts of time whilst working, and the exams having high grade boundaries. It has been hard to manage my time between learning and revising for exams and working a full-time job, however, the 20% work deduction allowance has helped me allows me to split my time better.
I have a great support network on my apprenticeship. I have my mentor, technical lead, line manager and director of procurement who have all been amazing in making sure I feel happy and comfortable at work and helping to teach me. I have a HR link who has been part of my apprenticeship since I was interviewed and alongside this, I started with 5 other apprentices, who are now friends of mine, and we all keep in contact to support each other throughout our apprenticeship. I have also had support in shadowing other teams within Jisc to gain experience working in other teams and to understand other areas of Jisc and their responsibilities.
If you are considering applying for an apprenticeship I would 100% encourage you to do it. I really struggled with what I wanted to do a few years ago but if there are areas of work that particularly interest you or even apprenticeships/qualifications that sound interesting I would always say for people to just apply. I am a very interactive learner and find that if I can do the task, we are learning about it will help me understand the topic much better. I think apprenticeships are great to give people the chance to put skills and learnings into practice. There is never any harm in applying for apprenticeships or just asking for more information around the position. I had no experience in procurement, but apprenticeships are designed to help teach people that want to learn and work at the same time.
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