Escalla IT & digital apprenticeships

Escalla apprenticeship interview transcript

Federico: I think what drew me to a career in tech was, obviously in lockdown there wasn’t a lot to do, so people were finding things to do, and my hobby became looking at old computers, that I found around the house or in the attic. And fixing them up. And before I knew it, when we were allowed to go out again in six months, I had the job in a computer shop and I was gaining experience in a customer facing and tech role.

I chose an apprenticeship because I thought it would give you more experience and the ability to get a job quicker and have an advantage over people that would’ve been in college and not have the same experience. Uh, I also think it’s good because it developed your interpersonal skills and you already have an experience in a workplace.

…, one thing about training is you get to meet people in a workplace that have the same passion, uh, for what they do as you. And I think that definitely helps with getting to learn a subject.

Being part of a Escalla feels like a family. We’ve got regular one-to-one reviews with our mentors that help us discuss any problems we face at work. And it’s much easier to document what we do to get ready for the endpoint assessments.

Dale: I mean, the way the world is, it’s if you’re not gonna know much about tech, then you’re gonna fall.

It’s, it’s been a lot more interactive and a lot more personal. I’d say. Say your work family isn’t, um, is busy or you’ve got a problem with, uh, something that you can’t talk to them about. Escalla was another kind of, uh, family that you could go to to talk about bits and bobs or just, um, I’d say let off steam.

Yeah, it’s, it’s been very supportive and they’ve been very kind and happy to just help you in any way that they can.

Ben: I started initially just as an apprentice at, with Escalla, um, like the other two. Um, and that was generally my first job, first full-time job. Of doing, doing that. So I started off as an apprentice, um, and slowly but surely got up sort of doing little bits extra in the business and advanced into doing a bit more SQL.

So I started just doing, taking calls and moved over to SQL and then I got the opportunity to do, after a couple of leavers, do a bit of, um, supervisor work for the new apprentices, which is a great opportunity for.

Slightly surreal. I honestly didn’t quite expect to be having to deal with my own apprentices in that sort of way. It’s quite a surreal jump from where I started, but it’s a, it is a, it’s a great opportunity and, um, I thought it’d be something I’d be quite interested in doing. I feel like I’ve, I just, well so far, so I’m going up from, from there.

I guess it’s very rewarding to see the apprentices come through and how they progress in their role, starting out with not really knowing too much as they begin. With my input and the input of everyone else in the business, we can get ’em to where we want them to be. So it’s, it’s really rewarding to see how they sort of end up in their sort of line of work.

I, I would recommend, uh, an apprenticeship. Um, I think it’s great the way the team works and being able to go down to the college. You get, uh, the nice social aspect of the team that’s done there as very, as well as an organized approach as to how they structure their training and, uh, reviews and etc.