Summer, a previous Modern Apprentice

Rachel Forsyth, Customer Service Modern Apprentice

I saw on social media that North Lanarkshire Council were looking for apprentices and it caught my eye as I was interested in exploring a new career path. I was so grateful that I got the opportunity to become an apprentice as this has helped me figure out my career goals and has gave me the opportunity to become more confident within myself. I also enjoyed that not only was I learning and gaining my customer service qualification, I was working in the contact centre full time.

Lauren Hendry, Accountancy Modern Apprentice

In my last year of high school, I was actively looking into apprenticeships as I knew this was the career path that I wanted to pursue. I started my apprenticeship with North Lanarkshire Council in August 2019. Due to the career path I wanted to follow I believed an apprenticeship was always going to be the path for me as it offered work experience as well as gaining my qualification.

North Lanarkshire council has given me the opportunity at a young age to be able to experience the valuable work experience whilst being able to obtain a qualification at the same time. All the staff were very supportive throughout the experience to ensure I am gaining all the skills required to complete my course and they provided all the help they were able to give.

Ross Massey, Business Administration Level 3 Modern Apprentice

To me an apprenticeship was the best alternative to college or university as I didn’t feel I was ready to start a long-term commitment to something at the age of 18. I wanted to experience a real-life working environment instead of sitting in a lecture not experiencing the real thing. Nowadays employers would rather someone have the experience rather than the qualification. However, through NLC they give you an opportunity to do both. After a year, I now have my SVQ 3 in business and administration and I’m now starting to think about going to university to further my education in business studies.

Of course, there will be bad days when you need to get your college work done by a certain date and you could be swamped in work that your work supervisor has given you. However, your Early Careers supervisor gives you great support as they can step in and say that there needs to be a fair balance of work and college work. 

If you are struggling to decide about where to go after school and you don’t plan on going straight back into full time education in college/university then I highly recommend to choose an apprenticeship to grow and mature yourself in the working world.