An Apprenticeship and Beyond – Meet Llywelyn!

What advice would you give to someone starting an apprenticeship?

It may be cliché, but..

Stick to your gut - When I started there was a bit of a negative connotation to apprenticeships and I did have key people in my life who feared me going against the grain of not going down the traditional university route like everyone else. After I wrote my pros/cons list, I knew what I had to do and I did it; I’ve never looked back since. Countless times throughout my career I’ve had different options to take and so far following my gut has seen me through. If something doesn’t feel like the right thing/approach to take, then it probably isn’t.

Look at failure as a part of growth – Whether you’re just starting an apprenticeship or still at school, you will likely fail in something at some point. Everyone does, this is inevitable. Whilst its hard, if you look at failure as a growth opportunity you can take a step back and try understand what led to the situation and what you can do in future to combat it. It might be starting an assignment the day you get it or proactively setting checkpoint meetings with your stakeholders to set expectations if something you’re working on is delayed. Whilst a failure might have been out of your control, try to own the solution and nail it in a way that it never happens again.

Failing my AS levels was one of my biggest failures and something that really sucked at the time. In hindsight it was the best thing that ever happened to me as it enabled me to know what it feels like to completely fall on my face and light my fire to never to have that feeling again.

Be radical, get mentors.. you’re now in the driving seat – My manager and mentor at the time helped me realise that I was in the driving seat and that unlike school I won’t have something pre-written that will peg where I sit. It’s up to me in order to build my career, of course the company will do everything to support but unless I was saying what destination I wanted to end up at, they can’t help to point me in the right direction to where I want to go.

When deciding where I wanted to end up, my mentor asked me to pick something that I thought was unachievable, but I would love to do. For me at the time that was to be a CTO. I remember saying that I’m only an apprentice and that it’s not really realistic for me to aim for that but he smiled, asked me what experience/skills a CTO needed. I took it away, wrote it all down, came back to my next session and unbeknownst to me I had just written my first career plan.

Although at the time it was completely unfathomable to me, now 7 years later, 4 levels more senior, this is certainly something that’s achievable, provided I continue to learn and grow.