From a young age I have always been interested in the creative industry. I studied advanced Btech Media at Pendleton College and wanted to further my career but the university and the academic route never really appealed to me. Then I came across Creative Break. The programme offers Apprenticeships in a variety of different companies across Manchester, all based within the creative sector. This sounded like the perfect solution, I could gain valuable skills and knowledge while working in a creative environment. So I applied to the programme, through the form on the website, was interviewed by the North West Apprenticeship Company and then landed an interview with Cuckoo Design. It all happened so fast. Then the best news of all, I was offered an Apprenticeship with Cuckoo – I was over the moon, this was it, my career had begun.

Monday 26th July was my first day. I met my work colleagues who were all friendly and helped me feel at ease and settle in to my role. To be honest, that first day I felt a mixture of emotions, nervous starting in such a well-known, reputable company but I also had a feeling of excitement that this could be the first step on the ladder into the creative industry and achieving my career goal.

As the week progressed I grew in confidence and learnt new personal and professional skills. So far my duties have varied and include working the switchboard – answering and taking calls – updating timesheets and adding jobs to the database, as well as being responsible for ordering stationery.

My first week has been fantastic, not one day has been the same. I would advise anyone who isn’t sure that the university route is right for them, or is really committed to developing a career within the creative industry, to apply for a Creative Break Apprenticeship.

So, I started out my career in PR almost nine months ago now, fresh out of college and desperately looking for a job to prove that not going to university was the right thing to do. I applied for a number of jobs and thought I stood a good chance, especially with ten GCSE’s and three A Levels in the bag… but oh no! “You need more experience”, just a way of telling me I basically needed to have worked somewhere other than a bar before standing a chance of getting a job.

I had never considered an apprenticeship before; some of my friends had done them and gave me a rough idea of what was involved, but they were in more practical fields such as joinery or hairdressing – neither of which I wanted to do.

Then I stumbled upon the Apprentice Academy, and they were offering NVQ Level 2, Business Administration apprenticeships – much more up my street. Firstly, I had a telephone interview and then went to their office to have a face to face meeting and carry out some basic office work, such as typing and answering the phone, just to see how I coped. I finally landed an interview with Tangerine PR and that was it… my career began.

Life as an apprentice was great, I was learning new skills, building up my confidence and also a bank of knowledge that would stand me in good stead for future careers. Because I was working and learning at the same time, all of the work I was doing helped me in building up a great portfolio of coursework and evidence which meant I had a good work/learning balance.

Daily tasks were the usual admin jobs, sorting the post, answering the phones, welcoming clients and visitors but I was also given the opportunity to get involved with PR activity too and that’s when I discovered I had an interest in PR. Six months flew by and suddenly I had an intriguing request to have a meeting with a board director. It was hard to contain my excitement when I stepped out of the meeting with an enormous grin on my face, I had just been offered a permanent position at Tangerine PR as a junior account executive, that’s right, a permanent PR role, brilliant!

The following two days were a buzz of excitement for me, I had told my family about the promotion, but had to keep it to myself in the office until the email went around telling everyone about my new job role. People were rushing over from all angles to congratulate me, one person even said they felt like ‘a proud mum’. I hadn’t felt so pleased and excited since I had been offered the junior captaincy at my golf club!

So here I am, almost three months into my new role and loving every second of it. I have already learnt so much but I know I will keep learning more interesting skills and qualities from my colleagues. Getting a proper salary means I can also treat myself because I can afford it, many of my student friends are jealous as they are in a lot of debt.

My advice to anyone in the same position-if you don’t think university is for you, look into apprenticeships and give it a go, you never know what it could lead to!

I don’t know about you but I’ve always believed apprenticeships were for school leavers who weren’t academic types and more interested in pursuing a trade. How wrong I was! There are now opportunities to find apprenticeships in a variety of sectors and with universities becoming more competitive and fees constantly increasing; I’m starting to wish I’d followed the apprenticeship route!

Creative Break is a partnership between public sector apprenticeship organisations and Greater Manchester’s creative industries, their goal is to generate vacancies in the creative sector; an industry where apprenticeships are scarce.

Sandy Lindsay, group MD of Tangerine PR, who is leading the programme, explains, “Apprentices will receive training to nationally recognised qualifications, based on assessment of progress within the workplace.” Lindsay then goes on to say, “Coupled with the work experience they gain while employed as an apprentice, Creative Break provides a superb first-step to a creative future.”

Here at Fluid Creativity, we have our very own apprentice, Danielle Fletcher, who is our junior office admin. Danielle has been with us for three months, and as well as picking up new administrative skills, she is also gaining an NVQ in business and administration. Danielle enjoys graphic design and hopes to gain experience through working in the creative sector to turn her design hobby into a career.

We’d like to know your views on apprenticeships, if opportunities like this had been around before you went to university, would you have still gone? And are any of you college leavers considering taking this route instead of university?

Wow! What a week!

We launched the Creative Break Apprenticeship Programme – on Monday to try to get the creative sector in (initially) Greater Manchester to see the value of apprentices and express some interest….and boy did they!

In less than a week we’ve created almost 30 potential jobs for the young people of Greater Manchester who are keen (desperate?) to get into this great sector and the amount of buzz we’ve generated has also been unbelievable – obviously it’s struck a chord.

While I’d like to say it’s completely down to Tangerine PR’s amazing PR capability (supported, of course, by Juice Digital’s amazing social media capability), I have to admit that I think it’s more likely that we all remember the break/s we were given, way back when we needed them and we want to repay the favour.

My break into PR consultancy was by a, then, complete stranger – Martin Newman of (at the time) the mighty Quadrant.  When I was moving to Manchester (crikey – 17 years ago now!) I blasted my CV around the usual suspects and was ignored by most.  But Martin, who didn’t know me from Adam, didn’t need a PR himself but was kind enough to forward my CV to Brian Johnson at Powells who, thankfully, did.  And my PR consultancy career was born.

And when I launched Tangerine PR eight years ago, several people helped us out including Jim Smith at Clear Marketing who introduced us to several of his clients and helped us on our way and Angie Robinson of the Greater Manchester Chamber and Geoffrey Piper of the North West Business Leadership team (to mention two of very many) who took time to meet us and help us find our way around the Manchester business scene.   Also Alistair Gornall (former Consolidated), Rachel Bell from Shine and Michael Murphy – now Grayling – all gave up their valuable time to give me much needed, and very much heeded advice on how to run a PR co.

So it’s fantastic to be able to ‘give something back’ (without being too ‘icky’ about it) to our great city and sector and try to give other people a break and I think this is why it’s appealed so much to people and this is ….heart warming?

I’ve had so many calls and emails from people wanting to help and the word is very definitely out!  And, as mentioned, we’re almost up to 30 in actual potential vacancies created which is, I think, ahead of even my ambitious expectations at this early stage.

But this is only the start so please keep it coming – if you can help spread the word contact us at creativebreak@tangerinepr.com or if you’d like one of these wonderful individuals in your business please visit the website and register interest.

Sandy Lindsay, Group MD, Tangerine PR

Throughout school I’d had an undying love for English and had always wanted to be a teacher; but things don’t always work out how you plan, do they? I had gone to college, full of ambition to achieve my dream, but left when I realised that school and college were completely different (e.g not just having a uniform to throw on in the mornings and actually having to pick out an outfit each day!)

I worked full time, paying my way, but soon became dissatisfied and that is when the seed was planted in my head during a meeting with a careers adviser. Apprenticeship? Having a proper job, whilst gaining a qualification? Sign me up!

After being interviewed by the Apprentice Academy, I was soon presented with lots of job vacancies, but one in particular stood out: Tangerine PR. I have a media qualification and I could see that the job entailed some sort of media know-how, so I was instantly interested. But to be perfectly honest, I didn’t have much of an idea about what PR was. God help me…

I was so nervous meeting with the interviewers. It was only my second ever interview, and I was wearing a dress that I hadn’t worn for a while… it was popping open a little at the chest and I was really concerned about them noticing my ‘wardrobe malfunction’ and thinking I was a ruthless flasher. I sat through the whole interview with my arms clasped infront of my chest, hoping to God that they didn’t notice and just kept talking. My prayers must have been answered because on my way home, feeling as though I’d let myself down (or rather, that dang dress had) I got a call from the Apprentice Academy telling me I’d got the job! I’ve never air pulled so much in my life!

Now five months in, I feel really settled. I do all the administrative duties for the Built Environment team and really get on with everyone throughout the whole office. In addition to a crash-course in PR, I’ve learned all about social media. I’ve even acquired a good Twitter following, and have been told my Twitter contributions are some of the best in the office. This makes me quite pleased considering I was a complete technology dud when I first started working here – I didn’t even have a mobile phone!

It may sound difficult to balance a full-time job, where you must meet deadlines and complete ‘coursework’ at the same time, but the way an NVQ works means it fits around you, you don’t have to fit around it. You get to choose the units you want to do – there are two compulsory units but that is all. And all the topics are ones that you deal with day-to-day in the office, such as ‘Answering the Telephone’ and ‘Working with Other People’. I have two mentors in the office – one in the operations departments that helps me with the admin side, and one in the Built Environment team that guides me through the PR based activity.

I also have an assessor from the Apprentice Academy who keeps in touch and comes to visit every 2 weeks to see how I am doing; whether I am having any struggles and if I am, she can help me with my work. There is also another girl on the same scheme as me at Tangerine PR, and we often sit down together and see if there is anything we can suggest to one-another to complete the work, and it’s reassuring to know that support is available to me should I ever need it.

The opportunity to do a Business Administration Apprenticeship for Tangerine PR has been probably the best thing I have done since leaving school, as I have gained so much already and can still continue to develop my skills by working in a real office environment. I still have a lot to learn, but can do this easily as I have support from the whole of the PR agency. When I leave I will have a whole bunch of new friends, new skills, a phone voice (haha!) and most importantly – a shiny new qualification to add onto my CV. An apprenticeship is a fantastic step towards doing something new; it opens new doors and you can enjoy yourself whilst completing it. I would honestly recommend it to anyone!