National Apprenticeship Week: Exploring the Value of Apprenticeships.

It’s the 14th annual National Apprenticeship Week, taking place from 8th to 14th February across the UK, and it isn’t a secret that at the CIM we strongly believe apprenticeships are a critical route to enter the marketing profession.

To join in the celebrations this week, we spoke the North-West’s Vice Chair of Education, along with one of the amazing tutors and a dedicated student from the region, discussing the experience and the value in today’s marketing career path.

“The Marketing Partnership gave me the ability to work towards a professional qualification and work on my career at the same time. Plan.com, where I work full time, has also been super supportive and allowed me to put ideas that I’ve learnt into practice on the delivery of campaigns and strategies.” claims Kaitlin Slack, Marketing Executive at Plan.com and a young a young apprentice studying with the Marketing Partnership.

Heather Blackley, Director at The Marketing Partnership in the Isle of Man, and Kaitlin’s apprenticeship organiser, is rightly proud when she highlights that their study centre was one of the first in the UK to launch the CIM’s Apprenticeship Programme. “In terms of key skills, it goes without saying that digital and marketing will be critical to the success of majority of organisations. With regards to the future of apprenticeships, I feel they will become even more important especially the digital marketing aspects as we have seen such development and adoption of digital marketing practices during the last year. And indeed, Government communications have highlighted the need for the public sector to be employing a co-ordinated Digital marketing approaches.”

When asked about how apprenticeships challenge students, Heather responds, “ One of the challenges the apprentice students face is balancing their work in what for most of them is a new workplace experience, with managing their time and studying. Our apprenticeship program runs with a four-day week with employers and the other day each week with our study centre.”

Kaitlin adds, “Starting the apprenticeship in marketing alongside my first marketing job after finishing my A Levels, has really got my career off to a good start. Gaining my CIM qualification allowed me to put the modules I had learnt into practice in the real world and develop different parts of the marketing team even further. Having an extremely positive and organised teacher has helped me to succeed not only in my year as an apprentice but as I continued my studies with the CIM Certificate in Marketing and now in the Diploma in Marketing. The support that Heather has offered over the past 3 years has allowed me to improve in all aspects of writing, marketing techniques and my career planning, from a base of weekly teaching, 1-1 feedback and in-depth help.”

 "The ability to earn whilst you learn not only enables early career marketers the opportunity to apply their knowledge in real time but also provides another inclusive route into the profession. Hopefully more businesses continue to take advantage of marketing apprenticeships as a means to employing fantastic new talent like those currently coming through the courses CIM provide."  highlights Sali Midjek-Conway, Vice Chair of Education for the CIM’s North-West Board.

Want to know more about the CIM Apprenticeships Programme?

The CIM works with Employers, Universities and Apprenticeship Training Providers to develop apprenticeship standards for marketing that accurately reflect the knowledge, skills and behaviours required now and in the future.

Find out more about our Marketing Apprenticeship Programme here and discover a list of our frequently asked questions here.

This article was written by Rasha El-Shirbini, CIM Board Member and Communications Ambassador for the North-West Region. Photo by Nicole Wolf.