Amy was an early participant on our Aspire London programme, starting to train on 14 February 2022 - Valentine’s Day. Romance must have been in the air because she fell in love with the IT industry.

Through the Online Customer Experience unit Amy was introduced to the vast and complex ecosystem of technologies, products, and services that exist in cloud computing. Amy then had her knowledge underpinned through a qualification in Salesforce – the world’s largest customer relationship management system (CRM).

Armed with:

• A solid understanding of the online customer journey
• An ability to design and map a customer’s digital experience
• The power to measure and analyse customer activity for improvement

She was ready to gain employment in the sector.

Breaking into the sector, even with up-to-date training, can be tough. Amy saw the advantage of an apprenticeship offered by Salesforce following her unit with Aspire London. She joined the over 700,000 apprenticeship starts.

The UK government reported that the business and digital sector is one of the largest employers of apprentices in the UK, with a focus on areas such as digital marketing, management, and technology. It was second only to construction between 2020 – 2021.

We’re incredibly fortunate to have been able to catch up with Amy for a quick update on her experience and journey to the apprenticeship programme.

We’ll let Amy take it from here:

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How Did It Start?

I started the SBI programme in February 2022.

I wanted to enter the IT industry, so I was searching for an apprenticeship, and at one point I had given up as I couldn’t find any that didn’t require previous certifications (e.g GCSE or A-Level IT) or some sort of previous IT experience.

I looked through the apprenticeship providers on the job listings and emailed LDN Apprenticeships, asking for some advice and if they offered anything that I could apply for. They called me and gave me information about a Salesforce program which I happily said I would like to do.

How Did It Go?

This programme has helped me develop myself professionally and personally. It helped me to better understand how a business works, what CRMs are and how they are used (they’re amazingly simple and complex at the same time), what an administrator’s daily responsibilities look like, and helped me improve my technical abilities.

Personally, it also helped improve my communication and confidence. This programme also helped prepare me to apply for an apprenticeship.

I’m currently working as a Salesforce Administrator Apprentice, and I can definitely say the program helped me prepare for this.

What’s It Like?

An apprenticeship is a mixture of studying and working, which can sometimes be hard to navigate, but you’re constantly learning and always busy. It can be a bit daunting at first, especially if you don’t have experience in what you’re doing, and you often have to remind yourself it’s okay to not know everything and there’s nothing you can’t learn!

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What’s next?

I will be sitting my Salesforce Administration certification exam this year among a few others.

My next steps are continual development in my admin skills, to study for the Advanced Administrator certification and possibly the Marketing Cloud Administrator certification whilst (hopefully) still working for the same company.

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Best of luck to Amy on her next set of certifications. The vast majority of apprenticeships start at a Level 2 or 3 so we have every faith your higher learning at Level 4 will give you the edge.

Our huge thanks for this update. Hopefully we are able to keep in touch!

If you’d like to follow Amy’s fully funded path into an apprenticeship and benefit from training via employment, visit our training page to see your pathway options.

Fill in the form at the bottom of the page and an advisor will let you know what funding you are eligible for.

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