Convince a company to take you on as an apprentice

It might be that you are interested in the apprenticeship route into a career but you haven’t been able to find the right apprenticeship, with the right company, in the right place advertised. Don’t let this put you off – get proactive and convince a company to take you on as an apprentice.

There is nothing cheeky about approaching a company and expressing your interest in working for them, whether this is full time or it’s to convince a company to take you on as an apprentice. Any employer who finds themselves sitting opposite someone who really wants to work for them is a lucky employer and it certainly shows your enthusiasm for the job.

Find a company

It might be that you have always had a company in mind that you would love to be a part of or you might need to do some research on companies that operate in the industry that you are interested in.

Find an existing apprenticeship framework or standard

You can find a complete list of apprenticeship frameworks and standards online on the government website. These are listed by occupation. Take a look through these and identify the apprenticeship that would suit both you and which fits with what the employer already does. You will need to identify the right level of apprenticeship for you, for example, if you have only just finished your GCSEs there is no point in choosing an apprenticeship that is at a higher level because chances are they will want you to have three A-levels.

Sell both yourself and the apprenticeship to the employer

This is the hardest part. Once you have identified the apprenticeship that you would like the employer to offer you need to put together a sales pitch to convince the employer to do it. With the apprenticeship levy coming in next April, lots of employers will already be looking to offer or to expand their apprenticeships so the timing is pretty good for doing this.

Ask yourself, what would the employer gain by offering this apprenticeship? And then ask yourself, what can you offer the employer by being their apprentice?

Things to find out:

• Does the company have any competitors who offer apprenticeships?
• Does the company already invest in other sorts of training for employees?
• Are you 16 – 18? If so you should be ready to point out the government financial incentives for employers offered to companies to take you on as an apprentice.
• Does the apprenticeship that you proposing cover skills that employers are struggling to find employees that have?

Finding the right contact

Finding the right person to send your proposal to will take some research. If the company already offers some apprenticeships, but not the one that you are interested in then you should look at their website and find the department of person who is in charge of their existing apprenticeship programme.

If the company doesn’t offer any apprenticeships at all then your best bet is the HR department if it is a large company or the business owner / director if it is a small business.

Once you have found all of the above information put together a polite but thorough and professional looking proposal which covers all of the benefits to the employer and include a copy of your CV. The worst that can happen is that the employer simply ignores you so you really have nothing to lose.