Apprenticeship - always slow?

silentkiller

My company (as in the one I work for not actually my own) is looking to replace my previous receptionist (I am the office manager) with an apprentice due to cost etc and what not.

We started this process in the first week of April when my previous girl told me she was leaving, she left on Friday and now I am on my own, inundated. The apprentice provider we went with have not yet even put our ad on the Apprenticeships website and I feel I have to constantly chase them for progress.

I've been told today that an ad was submitted Monday I believe, but there were not enough duties listed in it. There were only 2 (despite having provided an extensive job description with around 10 duties). The ad was rejected and so she is having to do another one. I feel like they are making excuses but was wondering whether any other business people out there have ever had such a slow going process?

I know you have to get the right person and I appreciate that can take time but my previous experience of apprentices was 100% negative and this is doing nothing to alleviate this.

If it was up to me, I would not have bothered going down this route and would have preferred employing on a normal basis but unfortunately for me I am not high enough to make that decision.

What are you experiences with apprentices?

bevanuk

Can you not just bypass the apprenticeships office and contact your localcolleges etc personally - they will be a lot less stringent and hopefully movethings quicker for you.

silentkiller

I have suggested this to the people in charge but due to a bad experience with an apprentice from our local college before, they are not keen.

However I may put it forward again if it ends up taking any longer to get the ad up.

colino

I am stunned that there are companies that still think the receptionist is just there to tell people to take a seat and buzz them through.
No place for a temp. or an apprentice/trainee, they have to know who everyone is and what they (roughly) do. Customer care and appropriate empathy and responses aren't for someone at the entry point (excuse the pun) of their career, they have to know how to turn away people just as much as they have to present the company in the best possible light to any visitor.

silentkiller

Try telling my boss that.

In fairness though, I say receptionist, it's more a business admin assistant job with some reception based duties.

I had no say in the whole thing besides a choice of: apprentice or do it all myself.

saintjammyswine

I would suggest it is an issue with your local provider and their own admin resources as most colleges are being squeezed at the moment and this it they type of thing that gets overlooked. The flipside is that most colleges and other providers would be bending over backwards to get this sorted as soon as possible to be able to get someone started and claim the funding. Maybe look at other local colleges and see if they can help quicker.

silentkiller

Just for an update - we have switched providers because the original manager of our vacancy (having only just put the ad up today by the way and it's all wrong) said that they don't get many applicants for Admin because Milton Keynes is rural.

Now I don't know if you've ever been to Milton Keynes but it's certainly far from rural!! My old house was more rural than this.

Sanne

I have recruited for an apprentice last year and the college handled the application process for us, i.e. we just provided them with a job description, ad text and a description of what we were looking for via a form and they advertised it on the national apprenticeship website, did the first scanning of CVs, phone interviews, personal interviews and forwarded the successful ones across to us for 2nd interviews.

The ad had to be shortened as only a certain amount of characters were allowed but everything else went really smoothly. We didn't use the local college by the way but one slightly further away but in easy commuting distance.

The previous year we had three apprentices through another agency, also was a fairly straightforward process (though I wasn't involved).

I was in kind of the same position as you - my direct report was made redundant and I was without any support for four months (I'm IT Manager) and now an apprentice instead of a qualified member of staff so am feeling for you!