As an apprentice economist, I have found immense value in extending a helping hand to my peers and those aspiring to follow the apprenticeship pathway.
Here’s why extending aid to fellow and prospective apprentices is crucial to you as a current apprentice:
- It’s an important exercise for reciprocal personal and professional growth between different individuals. Relationships formed through mutual assistance have become my invaluable support network, offering advice and encouragement during challenging times in my apprenticeship journey.
- It helps to build apprenticeship camaraderie amongst not only my cohort of apprentices at the Office for National Statistics but also across the whole of government. This has allowed me to seek advice on my apprenticeship from more senior apprentices who are entering the final stages of the program, gaining insight into the dissertations and Endpoint Assessment phase, allowing me to gain a snapshot into the future challenges of the program.
- You gain profound personal gratification from a feeling of giving back to your professional community. This can be rewarding and makes it easier to build a positive profile of yourself amongst your peers.
- It fosters an inclusive culture that doesn’t pull up the ladder behind oneself and encourages colleagues to assist one another. The evidence shows that giving a helping hand out to those in need makes them more willing to assist you in the future. Those you have helped are often the first to assist you in times of trouble.
- It’s an opportunity to share resources with other economists that assist in planning and upskilling. This saves time with replicating materials and allows more junior colleagues to learn best practices, accelerating their learning and development.
Here are some examples of things I have done to give back to my community:
- Providing emotional support to my peers during stressful times of an apprenticeship, to strengthen bonds and build resilience in the profession.
- Engaging on LinkedIn with those individuals wanting to join the Government Economic Service Degree Apprenticeship Programme in the future, making sure this doesn’t upset the fair playing field of the application and recruitment process.
- Acting as a mentor to other apprentices taught me much about myself, including upskilling my communication, organisational and leadership skills.
- Allowing others to Shadow my work as part of a cross-government economic shadowing scheme. This allowed me to also shadow other economists across government who may have a different flavour of work in their day-to-day department.
- Interviewing GESDAP candidates was a valuable experience in collaborating and learning with other more senior economists. For example, trying to navigate helping others without compromising the fairness of the recruitment process gives you a great sense of achievement. It is gratifying to guide fellow economists through the discovery phase of their careers.
- Helping an apprentice colleague during their enrolment, who then went on to assist me in producing a Junior Economist Monthly Newsletter publication.
In conclusion, the act of extending a helping hand to fellow and prospective apprentices is not merely a gesture of goodwill; it's a cornerstone of personal and professional growth within the apprenticeship community.
