Apprenticeship Next Steps

At Oracle, we offer various training services; such as government funded apprenticeships, supportive traineeships and flexible, bespoke training courses in the following sectors:

– Teaching and Education

– Assessor / Verifier

– Management

– Safeguarding & Prevent

– Advice & Guidance

– Customer Service

Our apprenticeship programmes can be the starting point within your career, they can allow you to progress throughout a sector or they can just be an additional qualification to diversify your abilities and skills. Whatever the purpose, they all provide value to businesses and individuals and expand your options for progression.

Apprenticeships

As apprenticeships are completed at different levels, the natural next step is to complete the next level within your sector to improve upon the qualification you’ve just achieved and explore that role even further. For example, as an alternative to University, young people often complete an apprenticeship at Level 3, therefore the next step is to complete a higher level / degree apprenticeship (aka Level 4).

Alternatively, depending on the workplace, apprentices of any age can be offered a permanent position within their place of employment upon completing their apprenticeship. This is beneficial for the employer and the employee as the apprentice will have been applying all of the skills as they learnt them to that business, and they also already understand how that particular company operates.

• Customer Service

Within this sector, a Customer Service Practitioner (Level 2) could progress to become a Customer Service Specialist (Level 3), meaning that they are considered to be a “professional” for direct customer support and act as a referral point for dealing with complex issues which Customer Service Practitioners bring to your attention.

• Management

Within the management sector, an apprentice could begin with a Team Leader apprenticeship (Level 3) and eventually progress towards an Operations Department Manager apprenticeship (Level 5) meaning their roles have progressed from managing a single team or project to managing and overseeing multiple teams and projects and ensuring departmental goals are met.

• Teaching

Within the Teaching sector, a Teaching Assistant (Level 3) could progress to a Learning and Skills Teacher (Level 5) where instead of providing additional support to a class teacher, they are the class teacher – promoting a passion for learning and high expectations of all learners.

As you can see, with apprenticeships, individuals can start from the bottom of an industry and progress throughout that entire sector, exploring various roles involved and learning practical skills and knowledge that they’ll actually be able to apply to their position of employment. This also shows that when businesses take on an apprentice, they’re able to keep that apprentice and progress them through their business, learning all the particular qualities of that company so that they understand it inside out and therefore are able to work even better within it. This also applies to our many other apprenticeships in Business, Finance, Digital, Rail Engineering and Transport & Logistics.

If you have any questions about our apprenticeships, feel free to contact us here and check out our other blogs for more information:

• How an apprentice benefits a business
• Apprenticeship FAQ
• Apprenticeship FAQ – Part 2
• Apprenticeship Myths
• Apprenticeship Mythbusting – Part 2

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Mistakes Interviewers Make

You’ll see many blogs talking about things to avoid or common mistakes to make whilst being interviewed, but what about for the other side? Interviewers need to also be wary of some common mistakes and things to avoid too, and we’ll go over some here.

Confusing Questions up

One of the musts an interviewer should avoid is confusing themselves, as this will also confuse the interviewee and leave a bad impression for them, that you were unprepared or not caring enough. A simple mistake is nothing to fret over however, but it’s best to avoid, multiple mistakes are something you should definitely avoid.

Not Letting the Interviewee speak

Whilst part of the interview is letting the interviewee learn more about the company through someone who works there, you should avoid turning the interview into a presentation, let the interviewee speak, ask questions and engage, if you go off speaking about how good your company is, you might not learn what you need to know from the interviewee.

Not Knowing about the Interviewee

Similar to the last one, you should learn about the interviewee, and you should know a bit about them beforehand. Reading their CV and cover letters for their qualifications is a good idea, but don’t forget to read about them as well. If you go into an interview without knowing anything about who you’re going to be speaking to, it would make it easier to slip up, or even confuse them with another interviewee! Both of these outcomes look bad on your part, being prepared to interview is just as important as being prepared to be interviewed.

Asking too many Questions

As important as learning about the interviewee is, it is best not to bombard them with questions. Asking too many questions could put off the interviewee and give off the wrong impression about the work environment. Too many might even just overload them with questions, ending up confusing them into giving the wrong answers.

Asking the Wrong Questions

It’s just as important to ask the right questions as it is to ask the right amount. If you ask the wrong questions, you may get some information from the interviewee, but if this info is even useful is another story. Asking unrelated questions could also be seen as the interviewer not being invested in the interview or the interviewee, so make sure the questions are relevant.

Intimidating Interviewees

One thing you might do without realising, is that you could be intimidating the interviewee without even realising. It could be something like being silent for a good few seconds after a clear answer from a candidate, pressuring them into giving more information than what’s needed, and this can intimidate them into giving wrong answers. Interviewees are already nervous, so making them even more nervous won’t give you an accurate view of themselves.

Not Giving Feedback

One thing you should always do after an interview, and something that is usually forgotten about, is giving the interviewee feedback from the interview after said interview. Even if the interviewee is not successful, receiving the feedback can be really helpful for them, seeing where they can improve in future interviews. 

Telling the Interviewee they have the Job

Whilst the subtitle sounds like you shouldn’t say it at all, if it is the case then you should mention it as they please. But one thing you should definitely not do, which I have experienced on my own, is tell the interviewee that they have the job in the interview, especially if it’s not concrete, this will definitely look bad for your company. 

Whilst these are only a few of the mistakes an interviewer can make and what you should avoid, hopefully some of these will help you improve your interviews. 

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Why Digital Marketing Is Important For Small Businesses

When small businesses get started, their focus is often on how to get the first customers through the door. Businesses may believe that since they offer a good product or service, it’s just a matter of time until customers find their way to them but that’s not always the case.

1. Targets the correct audience

Digital marketing methods are great for companies as it allows them to specifically target their product or service to the correct audience. This is vital as you don’t want to be targeting your services towards an audience that will definitely not use your company.

2. You can measure your analytics

All social media platforms that you can use to market your business allows you to measure your analytics which is a great tool for businesses to use to see what posts are working well and which posts are not performing as well as others. Google analytics is also another platform you can use to see the users that are going on to your website which tells you a whole range of data ranging from their location to what device they were using.

3. It is a cost effective way of marketing

One of the biggest reasons businesses use digital marketing methods to promote their business is because it costs no money. Especially as a small business that has started you may not have a lot of money to market your business which is why digital methods are a great form of marketing.

4. Find out what your competitors are doing

For your business to be successful, you need to pay attention to what your competitors are doing and learn from it. You shouldn’t think of your competitors as someone to beat, but as people who have something to teach you.

When you look at what your competitors are doing online, you will get some idea of what is and isn’t working. Most likely, whatever type of business you are in, your competitors have established a web presence. 

5. Increases brand recognition

Every business initiates with the aim of attracting more customers. The same thing applies to digital marketing. You can start with the aim to gain maximum possible clicks to your websites and marketing platforms. Gradually, more people start to recognise your brand and when you offer them the exact thing they are looking for, the reputation of your brand increases. This also helps you win the trust of your customers.

NEXT WEEK’S BLOG IS: ‘Mistakes Interviewers Make’

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