TOG Talks: Degree Apprenticeships

Welcome to The ONE Group's Podcast! We believe that every professional has a great story to tell, which is why we have set up TOGCast to share successful stories and top tips on how candidates and clients got to where they are today.

Our Degree Apprentices, Andy and Becca have shared their journeys at The ONE Group and their experiences of completing a Degree Apprenticeship. They go into detail about the perks of a degree apprenticeship, how they balanced their time between working and studying and what they would recommend if you are thinking about becoming a Degree Apprentice or hiring one!

If you would like to be our next guest speaker, host or ask us a question, please email us at marketing@theonegroup.co.uk

Hosted by Leanne Davidson-Town and Producer Bex.

If you would like to be our next guest speaker, host or ask us a question, please email us at hello@theonegroup.co.uk

Hosted by Leanne Davidson-Town and Producer Bex.

Transcript

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get going

[Music] 

welcome to today's podcast I'm 

Leanne and today I'm joined by two 

special guest from The ONE Group Andy 

Clark and in front of the camera for the 

first time producer

Bex  Hi guys thanks for joining thanks for 

us Today's topic is all about degree 

apprenticeship so let's get cracking 

tell me about degree apprenticeships how 

do they work so degree apprenticeships 

there an opportunity to work in a 

full-time job and study a qualification 

alongside whether that's a degree or 

something more specific maybe within the 

career someone's already within part 

of that is the Friendship Levy so a lot 

of large employers already do pay into 

this friendship Levy so if they bill 

over 3 million I believe it is a year 

they then automatically get funding for 

training  for those who are smaller 

businesses and their bill pays under 

three million they still get to be a 

part of the apprenticeship training but 

it's just slightly different for them so 

the large businesses help fund that for 

them and then they pay a different 

percentage compared to the large 

businesses but degree apprenticeships are for all 

they're open to everyone it's not just 

school leavers or graduates after say 

if they want to go on do a master's it 

can literally be for anyone if someone's 

looking for a career change or a 

different opportunity or want to further 

the education for what they're currently 

doing in their job anyone can do it so 

no age limit no age limit oh wow I think 

that's one of the common misconceptions 

is that you've got to be got to have 

just finished school  which 

potentially previously a lot of that was 

the sort of natural progression route 

but certainly on our course  me and 

Bex were the two 

youngest yeah the babies the babies 

we were yeah and we'd had people who'd 

been in their their working life for 30 

40 years and fancy doing a 

qualification doing something a little 

bit different so yeah no no age limit I think it's minimum of 16 but if 

you're over the age of 16  it's never 

never too old to to get 

involved so what would you say the 

benefits are to doing a degree 

apprenticeship then so I guess from an 

apprentice perspective it's about 

learning skills that are directly 

relevant to the career you want to go 

down and even if you don't really know 

exactly what that career is there's 

still lots of apprenticeships out there 

that could help guide you no matter what 

career Journey you then choose you're 

still going to gain those relevant 

skills for any job that you go into um 

and plus you're paid a salary and the 

qualification is free so you end up with 

no debt and you're in a full-time job 

you're gaining your career skills and 

then your education skills as well and 

from a employer perspective for them as 

suppose we say we're born and bred 

togers don't we so basically as an 

employer you can mould that apprentice to 

be whatever you want you can make sure 

they learn the skills that you need 

and then they obviously bring in fresh 

ideas from what they've been learning  

and yeah it's just another way to bring 

new skills into the workplace but also 

it be moulded to what exactly you want 

from them as a business so it sounds 

like it's kind of the same as going to 

University from the degree point of view 

you're still getting everything that you 

would get if you were to go to 

university qualifications wise but the 

bonus is at the same time you're in the 

industry you're learning and you're 

earning so then when you actually 

graduate you're already in the career 

absolutely on that piece of paper you've 

still got the exact same degree as 

everybody else but you've actually also 

got four years worth of commercial 

experience and no debt so when I when I 

compare when I compare my position in 

comparison to my friends we've both 

got the exact same qualification um but 

they're now struggling to get a job 

because they don't have the commercial 

experience yeah and I mean as a 

recruiter personally a lot of the the 

roles I recruit for they're more 

interested about the commercial 

experience than not as bothered about 

what is on the piece of paper so 

being able to actually get both um 

without having any debt is is a huge 

benefit so you've got the best of both 

worlds basically pretty much it takes 

the same time so was it a four year degree 

yeah so yeah the way the way we did it 

was instead of it being a three-year 

course we did a four-year course so 

yeah you still do the same modules it's 

just spread out so we did studied one 

day a week instead of full-time so

yeah it does take take an extra year 

but it's it's actually a bit more 

manageable  spreading everything out 

 obviously comes with its challenges 

fitting it in alongside work but yeah 

I think it's I think it's a fantastic 

thing to to be able to have  the 

commercial experience as well as the the 

certificate definitely because you both 

been progressing within your careers 

whilst also having the apprenticeship and 

you've been promoted as well within that 

four years and that's someone at 

University wouldn't actually have had 

that and like you say people would then 

graduate and have to start from the 

bottom whereas you started at the bottom 

and already work your way up in those 

four years yeah exactly that sounds like 

a no-brainer is the best yeah like you 

said The Best of Both Worlds being able 

to to work and study at the same time a 

lot of my friends that they always say 

that they wish they did what I did now 

that they've seen the position that I'm 

in that yeah they all they really wish 

they didn't I that's the moment like 

degree apprenticeships is still just so unknown 

like by businesses and students like I 

remember when a and I was first looking 

I didn't really know that it existed new 

I didn't really want to go to Just 

University because I wanted to get into 

work earn some money and then luckily 

I just spoke to someone one day who knew 

about them and guided me through that 

and then I was like oh my God like this 

is amazing like why isn't this promoted 

in schools and you know when you come 

out of education and I think people as 

well obviously back in the day 

friendships they were like you know go 

to be an engineer or you're quite 

mechanical always very hands on yeah 

apprenticeships whereas nowadays yeah 

it's not and every year more and more 

degrees are getting released as 

apprenticeships as well  so yeah it's 

just going to keep growing so everyone I 

think just needs to know about that yeah 

absolutely so what's actually involved then 

from your perspective what did you have 

to do you said you worked four days a 

week and then one day a week was steady 

yeah so in terms of the actual 

application process it was the same as 

applying to any other job really we 

submitted our CVS spoke to to um Georgia 

Talent sort of professional over here 

had the interviews and then from 

there we were obviously selected 

which is very nice and then yeah we 

we we started started working started 

the degree so we' travel down to to 

the campus University campus sort of 

four times a year once a quarter  

just so we can all meet up and sort of 

speak to the tutors it's easy to ask any 

questions face to face have a bit more 

sort of learning face to face but the 

the beauty of the degree apprenticeship 

and certainly our course was that a lot 

of it was remote so we we didn't have to 

travel every single week for example 

A lot of it was all online you followed 

a set structure and yeah you work 

through the program that was sort of 

released to you so that's really nice 

then that there is actually a cohort so 

if you were a degree Apprentice on your 

own within the company I mean you guys 

were lucky to have each other but if you 

were on your own then at least you know 

that there are these other people going 

through the same processes as you at 

that same time and what was quite nice 

about it as well because I had this 

question a lot when I'd used to talk to 

people about the friendship was how do 

you though not get that like in 

classroom interaction from that tutor 

and also from your peers but actually it 

was quite nice because every week you 

would had like an online task to do so 

you could talk with the other students 

on it as well share your ideas and 

thoughts on the topic and it was quite 

nice as well because I don't know about 

you but you got to see how it was 

implemented in other businesses and not 

just our own  so it was really 

interesting to see actually you know how 

this business would do it and how that 

business would do it but how we're all 

learning about the same thing but how 

they would implement it differently and 

again I guess that adds to the skills 

and experience of we have that knowledge 

for future whether it being in own 

company or in future careers it's very 

transferable yeah we learned about 

different challenges that other 

organisations 

sometimes we were actually able to 

say well we do this that's and they were 

able to take that away to their company 

and vice versa we were we were learning 

from each other in terms of the actual 

practical side of things in the 

workplace but then also in terms of the 

theory we were able to help each other 

out and yeah and I guess expanding on 

that again that's the nice thing about 

apprenticeship whereas I feel probably 

if you're just at University as a 

full-time student you can't take what 

you've learned and implement it 

practically whereas we could go off 

straight away and put this into to our 

jobs you'd have to wait the until you 

graduate and then try and remember what 

it 

was something I wanted to implement yeah 

but yeah all of our all of our 

assignments were based on our actual 

work our workplace company as a whole so 

yeah everything that we were doing some 

some of them includes sort of like 

Financial forecasting so instead of 

just having being theoretical we could 

actually go and work with our finance 

director and say look we need to 

learn a bit more about  Financial 

forecasting help us out 

and we were able to then learn a bit 

more about our own business as well as

working I would normally go and work 

with dunk for example but for yeah 

for this course we we spent a couple of 

days with him he told us everything we 

needed to know about Excel and how 

he predicts  our company's yeah how 

predict the revenue and yeah we were 

able to then sort of learn take what 

we'd learned but then actually use in 

our own business which is actually 

really interesting as well yeah yeah 

that sound good and I think what was 

quite nice I guess focusing a bit more 

on the job element so how the one group 

chose to do as an example was we were 

brought in and then we were allowed 

within our six month probation period to 

actually go around like so for here it's 

different divisions  to kind of get to 

know all parts of the business anyway 

like as a career and then decide where 

you want to go there they gave you a 

little bit of so that was quite nice as 

well I think to add on top actually it 

wasn't just you're doing this job with 

this great it was what would you kind of 

like what takes your interest and then 

let's help us Implement that I love that 

approach yeah nice approach so we've 

talked about the benefits then of the 

degree apprenticeship  but what made you 

actually want to apply  so I think 

we're fairly similar in that neither of 

us actually knew what we wanted to do 

so we left College and then it was a 

bit like well what's next all of our 

friends or most of our friends went to 

University that was sort of the route 

that the colleges push you down it's 

seemed that is always the route that 

they want you to take when it's not 

actually for everyone so I I was 

lucky I was able to take a couple of 

years out and sort of evaluate what I 

actually wanted  was still on 

cheer and then started looking for 

for degree apprenticeships thinking that 

it's a good way of getting commercial 

experience whilst also getting the 

degree at the same time so that was 

the the biggest draw for me was being 

able to to earn and learn as they say 

yeah exactly the same there yeah and 

that's the thing I say I guess like you 

mentioned colleges pushing University m 

is the exact same experience like the 

schools just want you to go that route 

and like you say it isn't for everyone 

and again I just don't think everyone 

understands there's many other 

opportunities and directions you can go 

down so I just I've actually felt very 

lucky that I did find that no clue 

where I'd be now and especially just 

having no idea about what you want to do 

like as a job whereas this direction has 

actually curved me to then find my love 

for marketing in a job now I love um but 

also then I've got those skills from my 

management degree that I could carry 

over into any career you know if it was 

to ever change or anything I hope not 

because I love marketing um but like you 

say even if the career you did in the 

apprenticeship isn't quite for you that's 

okay because you've gained that 

commercial skill you've gained the 

education side of it and you can take 

that anywhere with exactly and I think 

 if you don't know what you are 

wanting to do 

 if you have a look at the 

apprenticeships out there there's so 

many different ones as you said a lot 

of them are handson sort of physical 

roles for example but there's not where 

we did a business management degree

in a recruitment company I didn't even 

know what recruitment was five years ago 

I didn't know that was a thing so 

yeah it certainly will help broaden your 

horizons to to what else is out there 

and then from there you might actually 

find something that you really enjoy 

 like we have weren't sure this was 

an actual career  sort of five years 

ago and then since since finding out 

about the degree apprenticeship about the 

one group we yeah we've both been 

able to to forge a career here which is 

which has been very good um but also if 

you do know what you want to do but not 

100% you're at University there's 

probably an apprenticeship for it so 

have a look see which ones are available 

near you and yeah certainly 

give them a consideration so yeah that's 

actually a good point so if you don't 

want to go to university take the plunge 

on that certain career that you think 

you might like if you did a degree 

apprenticeship you didn't have to pay 

for it then if you didn't like it after 

a year or so and then you left you still 

didn't have to pay back no no I mean we 

yeah we had people on our cost that 

they give it a year and actually it 

wasn't for them but they then knew that 

it was either that particular job that 

they didn't like or it was actually they 

just didn't want to go into higher 

education again they' completely 

finished with the study 

so yeah it certainly gives you the 

opportunity to to try something without 

actually having having to commit to it 

especially with the financial 

commitments and full-time uni it's a 

lot friends but I think as well just on 

that from say if it was the job side 

that they didn't enjoy but they did want 

to carry on the apprenticeship you can 

find another employer you can carry 

that so that I feel like it's good to 

keep in mind as you know it wasn't 

right for you but there's plenty of 

other don't have to stick it out for the 

four years if you're not enjoying that 

particular company okay right 

interesting so did many people on your 

course do that not that I actually know 

of not many I think there's one or two 

but yeah no overall I think we we all I 

mean some people were already previously 

employed by by their employer where 

me and backs obviously joined the 

company to do the apprenticeship

others in the class were actually 

previously employed that been with the 

company for years and then just fancy 

doing an extra 

qualification but yeah the hang there 

was one or two where it just didn't 

quite work out for them and yeah 

they've gone on to to pastes new but 

yeah we were very lucky that we were 

able to see it through to the end of the 

same 

company and yeah still still here now 

yeah so it must have been a journey then 

and was this year graduation year it was 

yeah we had our graduation same as same 

as a normal graduation we were mixed in 

with all of the so full-time students if 

you like yeah um and yeah that was down 

in Cambridge really really nice had 

the had the ball gowns on and everything 

Chuck the 

Caps fantastic and I guess as well on 

top of our apprenticeship so we also did 

an extra part of it for the apprenticeship 

which is the CMI the charted 

Management Institute so we are now 

qualified chartered managers as well and 

so with that we had to build a portfolio 

of all the work we did within our jobs 

and within the education degree part and 

then do a presentation on that and a 

part of our degree was to do a 

work-based project so we had then do it 

like an interview based on that as well 

so there is like extra additional things 

on top of just the degree which is quite 

nice as well if you did want to really 

push yourself to that next level 

projects okay that sounds really 

exciting so did you get to pick your own 

and how did you decide what to pick yeah 

absolutely so we were able to pick 

our own  the idea of the project was 

that it was directly linked to the 

workplace place  but other than that 

we had pretty much free reign of what it 

was about as long as it had some sort 

of benefit to to the company yeah so 

I was interested in the benefits 

packages both sort of internally and 

externally with the clients that we work 

with so I basically did a bit of an 

online questionnaire to find out what 

benefits our employees like what they 

value what they don't actually value as 

much as we maybe think they do um 

cycle to work scheme yeah it's the kind of 

things like that just putting things 

into a bit perspective of saying these 

are the benefits that our staff actually 

love let's make sure they're here to 

stay and to see if there is anything 

that we could potentially lose but then 

also find out what they would like to be 

added to the benefits package um so yeah 

in the end we we found out about the 

flexible working was obviously very 

was very valued the commission scheme 

the bonuses the trips away things like 

that  and then there's also  some 

interesting things about what people 

wanted added to the benefits package 

they included things like the Dental 

cover  A Better Private health care 

System some people went a little bit 

wild and was sort of saying about having 

slides in the office and things like 

that which were a little bit out there 

but yeah on the on the whole it was 

really interesting to see which which 

benefits people really wanted to 

stay within the business but then also 

added so then I was able to present 

that back um as a result we have made 

changes we have changed our benefits our 

healthcare provider and yeah we've 

brought in a couple of other little 

things and then talks are ongoing um 

about some other benefits nice yeah so 

mine was obviously down the marketing 

route so I wanted to focus more on our 

personal branding for our recruitment 

Consultants it's a big thing been the 

recruitment industry right now  it's 

about how we always say you know 

Consultants their desk that they own 

it's it's their own business so how can 

they keep building on that getting more 

further ahead than their competitors

so in the end I implemented a course  

to implement them on personal branding 

kind of get to know what it is and how 

to go about it and then through that I 

was able to track and work closely with 

everyone on their LinkedIn help boost 

their brands which in return for some of 

them it did work they had to put the 

work in um but they did see a return you 

know more people trying to message them 

they were like oh yeah you're the person 

I've seen on LinkedIn and when they were 

going out on networking things like like 

that so it's just to help them become 

more recognized within their sector of 

what they're recruiting and yeah just 

help have a bigger in return on 

investment nice so with these projects 

in the four years then what skills do 

you think you've learned over that whole 

time 

Lots it really was though like I feel 

like our apprenticeship the degree side 

really did give you us a nice mixture of 

anything business management um so like 

and said earlier about like you know 

learning more about the finance part of 

it or like we did the HR part of it the 

marketing side of it the people side so 

there is lots of it and like the 

people skills kind of managing people 

you know for further future careers it 

really does just give you a big variety 

of skills especially for the degree 

we chose  so yeah but again you could 

make that as wide of a variety or as 

focus of a variety depending on what it 

is you're wanting from the 

apprenticeship and the apprentice as an 

employer what skills do you want them to 

learn MH yeah yeah no absolutely our 

course was a fairly broad course so we 

we learned a little bit about a variety 

of different areas in all regards to 

business but if you were to to focus on 

a set say Finance um Finance 

apprenticeship then their degree is 

obviously going to be more Finance 

related so it can it can vary  

depending on the needs of the business 

of what they're actually wanting to get 

out with this person then depends on 

what route The Apprentice goes down and 

what skills they then gain so it can 

be can be tailored regarding sort of 

dependent on company 

needs so what have you most enjoyed then 

about the whole apprenticeship and 

experience for me I think it's got to 

be sort of the work side of things 

like I said I didn't know what 

recruitment was at the start I didn't 

know what what I was getting myself in 

for but actually I've really really 

enjoyed it I've yeah been been able 

to do well here  which has been really 

good  and yeah I've worked with some 

some fantastic companies fantastic  

candidates and yeah when you are able to 

to put two and two together um then is a 

great feeling yeah and likewise for me 

obviously I had like a bit of a journey 

at the one group started off in 

recruitment but found myself in 

marketing again finding that career I 

loved it wasn't quite right at the 

beginning but obviously found my way 

and obviously as an employer they were 

able to give me that opportunity got my 

degree alongside you know four five 

years ago I was I'm not going to Union I 

won't get a degree but here I am four 

four years after studying  but it just 

yeah it feels really rewarding I think 

as well because you have got that you 

know commercial side of it alongside the 

education side I think we feel like 

ahead of the game obviously you've 

earned salary you know future things 

obviously accommodates that no debts um 

and I think it's just the case now of 

like what's next and I think it's just 

really exciting and yeah I just think 

it's a really great thing and everyone 

should do 

it you heard it here guys  you 

me so one last question for me then 

before we go into the last task of the 

day and that is what advice would you 

give some when thinking about doing a 

degree apprenticeship I definitely think 

it's worth worth considering um 100% 

like we sort of said we were both by 

college we were both pushed down the the 

university route which you don't have to 

do if you do think there's other 

opportunities there or there certainly 

is other opportunities there that 

should certainly be considered and 

yeah we we've both gained a lot from our 

apprenticeships and yeah 

like I said a lot of my friends now who 

did go to university wish they wish they 

did what we did  because yeah we've 

been able to earn a salary we've got the 

commercial experience which is so 

valuable  as well as the exact same 

sort of degree on the on that piece of 

paper at the end of it 

and they're going to have to pay debt 

for the for the rest of their not not 

life for a lot of a lot of years to come 

whereas yeah we're completely debt 

free which which is a nice position to 

be in I think one piece of advice I 

would say is if you're looking for the 

uni life don't do it because obviously 

you don't get that aspect of it and also 

although you get that 20% off the jobs 

like one day a week to do your study it 

does eat into a lot of your personal 

life it's hard work it's a lot of work 

so you've got to be committed to it but 

if you can do that then you'll 

absolutely fly through it and Smash It 

and yeah just if you're looking for 

something a bit more exciting than just 

going to UNI and want to get into work 

then it's the perfect opportunity for 

you to go to well you definitely made it 

sound very appealing something that 

maybe I should have done perhaps I don't 

know if it was available back then 

that's what I mean it's still quite 

fresh I think just to everyone I think 

it might be yeah well thank you so much 

for joining us today it's been really 

really interesting learning all about 

your journey and congratulations both of 

you and yeah thank you all if you'd 

like to subscribe to Togcast so you never 

missed an episode please do and we look 

forward to seeing you soon thanks bye 

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