Our Apprentices are All Grown Up - But Not Flying the Nest!

Who can believe that it’s that time already – one whole year on and time for ‘Cohort 1’, our founding group of ten apprentices, to sit their final assessments which will confirm them as fully qualified social media practitioners!

And we just couldn’t be more proud of them. Anyone who follows us on The Twitter, will know that each and every one of them has been offered a permanent position with their company – they’re just too good to let go.

William Lees-Jones, owner and MD of the famous brewery, JW Lees, called me after he and his marketing manager, Jonathan, attended the final interview of their apprentice, Alex. William is one of our founding and most active Juice Academy Advisory Panel members and he couldn’t have been more supportive. “You should be very proud of what you’ve done,” he said – well right back at us all, said I – our Advisory Panel, all of our employers and, it has to be said, our Tangerine team (especially the fabulous digital strategists who wear the badge of ‘tutor’ with pride), have been amazing. It’s been a definite team win!

Who’d have thought we’d be here 12 months ago when we were all – honestly – feeling a little bit ‘rabbit in the headlights’ and wondering what we were getting into!?

But here we are and there they are – our shiny new graduates – and many more on the way as the three subsequent cohorts are also hands down, showing what a difference they can make to the businesses which’ve taken them on and set them to work at their social media channels and other marketing challenges.

And they’ll be having a proper graduation ceremony on 8th August – with caps and gowns no less – at Rainbar, courtesy, once again of the fab JW Lees! Watch this space for photos!

But no time to stop and reminisce too much – we’re too busy recruiting Cohort 5 (or maybe ‘Cohort 1 Mark 2?) and we have some amazing employers on board, including leading casino/nightspot, Manchester235; the world’s largest trampoline park, Jump Nation and Sir Bobby Charlton’s charity, Find a Better way. So if you know any bright young things wanting to roll their sleeves up and have an instant, quality career, get them to visit www.juiceacademy.co.uk – the deadline for applications is fast approaching!

There are a couple more slots for potential employers too but you’ll need to move quickly for July! (but, fear not, we’ll do it all over again in September!)

Sandy Lindsay is Group MD at Tangerine PR & Director of The Juice Academy