Starting an apprenticeship in a start-up company

When I made my decision to do an apprenticeship at the start of this year, an opportunity arose at a start-up company. For myself and most other people the thought of this was quite daunting and I was asking myself so many questions. What if the company doesn’t work out? What if I don’t work as well in a smaller team? Will my career progress be put at a standstill?

After speaking to friends and family about the position there was a lot of mixed opinions and being very honest, they thought I was taking a massive risk considering I didn’t go to university so I didn’t have a degree to fall back on. Bearing in mind I was completely new to digital marketing so this was all a first time experience.

In these types of situations, you must trust your gut instinct and the CEO really did ease any nerves and apprehensions I did have.

So, I decided to go for it and went through the interview with confidence. Soon enough, I received a job offer.

From day one I immediately felt welcome by all the team. Don’t get me wrong, I was thrown in at the deep end and to do some filming for the platform just so I could get an insight on some of the stuff I’d be doing. I didn’t mind though, I was excited to be getting into something new. On my first week we also went on a team building day out where we went bowling and played mini golf. For once it was nice to spend a big of time getting to know your new colleagues instead of just a quick introduction at the office.

When the proper work began, I never felt a like a burden asking for help and everyone was really understanding of the fact that I was new, and I needed to learn. Another girl at the company is also an apprentice and only started 6 weeks before I did and it was really comforting to know that she was in my position not so long ago and we are going through this journey together.

My boss sat me down a lot of times and gave me in depth tutoring on what software the staff use so I could be up to speed. Immediately I knew that being in a smaller team was the best decision for going into a completely new sector. I was getting one-to-one training at my own pace and the opportunity to ask questions whenever I needed to.

 Working at a start-up also meant our ideas were valued and considered, contributing to the development of a whole website is a challenging but rewarding task. My boss, still learning alongside us, which meant it was a collaborative effort required to bring the platform to life.

When it came to starting my sessions at Juice Academy, I was a bit nervous as I thought everyone would be around 16/17 and I would stand out like a sore thumb, but it wasn’t as bas as I had thought. Majority of people were my age or even older. The sessions were really engaging and I didn’t feel like it was a ‘school environment’.

Since then we have expanded going on work trips to London and a day out to Dublin and I now feel so comfortable and content in my job.

Overall my experience at a start-up company has been nothing that I expected, I have been able to get direct training within a close-knit team and there’s opportunity for rapid development. In my opinion working for a start-up will massively reap reward rather than disappointment and I have never looked back since.

Sara Skeffington, Cohort 42