On July 26th 2021 SS Educational Services welcomed our first Apprentice, Alex, who is studying for the Digital Marketing Apprenticeship L3 Standard. We introduced him in this Behind the Scenes post and decided that as he has now been with us 6 months, and has just passed his probation (which he was unnecessarily worried about) we thought it would be a good time to look at the benefits of the apprenticeship in Alex’s own eyes but also how we have changed our social media output since he has joined.
Alex ““As an apprentice that has been affected by the pandemic, finding an apprenticeship seemed impossible. That is until I came across an opportunity with SSES. In the job advertisement they said they needed someone to help “manage social media” and “create campaigns”, which I had fortunately had experience with. After applying I got a phone call requesting my CV, then following that they wanted an online Teams interview. Nervous for the interview, I researched the company (to find they specialise in Early Years End Point Assessments), put together a PowerPoint (about how I would manage their social media pages) and put on my Smartest clothes in the hopes of impressing Suzanne and Jeff. During the interview I could feel the passion for the field in their voices and discovered their values were reflective of mine. Skip a day or two and I got a telephone call saying they would like to offer me the job. Then skip another month and I was in their office, gifted a laptop, mug, journal, pens and sticky notes to welcome me. I felt like I was part of the team immediately. We went over my paperwork and contract and laid out a roadmap of goals to achieve in the next 6 months. By the end of those 6 months, we had got our first client.”
“In March of 2021. my Digital Marketing Level 3 apprenticeship had been affected by Covid-19 and I was made redundant. I got my next job in April of 2021 as a cannel boat cleaner to help support my mum and sister. As mentioned above SSES was the perfect opportunity to make a career at of myself and a fresh start. Some of my proudest moments in my professional career were with SSES. I make all the content for social media in SSES which has been growing by the day, partly my work gaining followers, likes, engagement etc. Another achievement was the blog UI (user interface) . When I first joined SSES the blog was a clutter of titles and words. I divided each blog into sections and added padding to the words on the blogs (the gap between the edge of the screen and the words). Another achievement was the “Your End Point Assessment” campaign – a month long of research and content creation to get more visits on our website. Finally, my single greatest accomplishment was helping SSES get a client at the end of 2021.”
Our social media has grown bigger and better than we could have imagined, and we know that is in part down to Alex’s eagerness to learn and help the business grow. Looking at that previous post we had plans to introduce Facebook, You Tube, Tik Tok and update the website. With one month to go, we are well on the way to meeting these targets. We look forward to what the next 6 months will bring.
