Apprenticeship Week takes place from Monday 7 February to Sunday 13 February, and we want to shine a light on our Creative and Digital Marketing Apprentice, Danny Walker! Get to know Danny...
How did you hear about your apprenticeship with PCP?
I saw the apprenticeship first advertised on Indeed whilst doing some general job searching. I actually forgot to apply for the role when I initially saw it, it was only until two weeks later I remembered about it and then applied. Looking back, I really think it was fate as I had been told since, that my application came though as they were shortlisting! This was around the beginning of October, and within two weeks I was offered the job role, so I was buzzing!
Why did you choose an apprenticeship?
Doing an apprenticeship was always something I had in mind, especially in this sector. When I left college in 2018, I jumped straight into my first job, and was there for three years. However, going into digital marketing and an apprenticeship was always on my mind, this was due to studying media and film at college, which I thought would blend itself quite well into content creation of digital marketing.
It wasn’t until the first few rough months of the pandemic that I realised that I needed a more future proof job, that if in any circumstances like the pandemic happened again (fingers crossed it doesn’t) I would have a role where I would be able to continue to work. This is where the ideas of digital marketing came back to me, I had done a couple of training courses through Baltic Apprenticeship in early 2021 to gather some knowledge, which helped boost my confidence in the field. Then many months later this opportunity at the Pioneering Care Partnership came up, and I grasped it with both hands!
Talk us through a general day in the life as an apprentice?
The typical working week for me is a hybrid role. I work the first three days of the week at home, then the last two in an office at the Pioneering Care Centre. I have had to get used to working from home, at first, I did struggle a little bit, however my team is so supportive, they made it a lot easier for me, which I appreciate massively.
I work closely with the County Durham COVID-19 Resilience Team project. This is a project that helps people who are 18+ living or working in County Durham, who have been mentally impacted by the pandemic and COVID-19. It is a fantastic service, I update and manage their social media, making sure content is put on socials as often as possible, and it has been great to see it grow.
The emphasis on staff wellbeing is unbelievable. We are a family at the PCP, and everyone is there for each other, this is heighted by our ‘wellbeing time’. This is two hours each week (pro rata) that we can take at any point during the week, to help boost hour mental wellbeing, which I have found to be so useful, especially working from home. If I need to take an hour just to relax or go for a walk and clear my head if it is a busy working day, it’s valuable.
What have you learnt so far?
Learning everything so far has been great fun, my favourite tool being Canva. This being the main tool we use to create our visual content, it’s rewarding when you feel like you’ve made a masterpiece, and I make a lot of them! I do like blog writing as well, as it is quite relaxing doing pieces of writing. Sendible is also my best friend, which is the content schedule software we use, allowing us to schedule our content for weeks in advance, which is very useful to get certain content out the way, so you don’t have to worry about them and leave them until the last minute!
Biggest achievement so far?
I think the biggest achievement for me, is getting the role to begin with, I’ll be forever grateful for being offered this great opportunity and for everyone at the company that has been fantastic with me since joining (however, my teammates liking my cups of tea trumps that)!
What does the future hold?
I will have completed my apprenticeship around November time 2022, I would ideally like to go into more content creation side of things, however this is before I have learned everything that I am going to be learning through my training courses, so that might open more avenues. After my apprenticeship is completed, I would love to stay and work with the Pioneering Care Partnership as its such a great place to work, but we will see what the future holds!