Today, recruiting an apprentice can be one of the most important steps you can take. It’s a solid step towards the future for what has been a difficult time for the activities sector. Expanding your workforce may not be at the forefront of your mind, but with the extension of financial incentives for apprentices, there has never been a better time to invest in new talent, invest in your local community and invest in your business.

 

How can you find the right apprentice for your business?

Your first step is to understand what part of your business would benefit from an apprentice. If you’re looking to expand your coaching department, you might want to consider taking on a new apprenticeship coach. Depending on your business, you can add anything from cycle instruction to activities leadership to bring a new dynamic offering to your customer base.

 

How do you choose the right training organisation?

Finding an organisation that can provide you with the type of training you need should be your first port of call. First Step Training can offer you a range of qualifications that will expand the knowledge base of any prospective apprentices.

We provide assessed training and quality assurance to make sure throughout their time working with you on-site, they are learning and evaluating their skills. Best of all, we’ve partnered with leading organisations and National Governing Bodies (NGBs), so you’ll always have the best and most up-to-date instruction for your apprentices.

 

How will you find the funding available?

The available funding for apprenticeship training and assessment is based on whether the business is paying a levy. For a levy paying business, you must currently be paying a bill of over £3 million a year. You can find further information on eligibility and parameters on the UK government website. If you’re not paying the levy, you can seek the cost of their training for up to 95% of the funding band maximum. For all eligible apprenticeship courses, First Step Training, for example, request the maximum amount of funding which is usually £6000 per apprentice.

 

How do you find an apprentice?

Your first step is to understand the basic parameters you need for a qualifying apprentice. All apprentices eligible for funding must be 16 or over, outside of full-time education and be living in England.

If you want to extend or diversify your access to possible apprentices, why not consider going to the source? You can hold your own open days and events to advertise your business generally and offer opportunities for apprenticeships. Expand your advertising potential and use social media to create campaigns and raise awareness as to the apprenticeships you have.

Whether you have school partners or would like to go further afield, you can extend your reach by arranging to visit schools, colleges, and universities. Colleges and universities often offer careers events that you can attend as vendors but there are also other careers events such as World Skills UK Live you can attend.

 

Creating an advert with your apprenticeship account

Using the ‘adverts’ section of your apprenticeship account exposes your prospective role to those who are already searching for an apprenticeship. Remember, you need to make an Apprenticeships account, to receive funding. You can create multiple or similar adverts using the clone feature after you submit the advert. Adverts are usually approved or rejected within 24 hours.

You’ll need to refer to the following before you start:

• Advert name – this must relate to the apprenticeship training and use the word ‘apprentice’ or ‘apprenticeship’
• Training that the apprentice will take
• A training provider that will deliver the training
• Number of available positions
• Organisation’s name, address and location
• Start date, application closing date and whether the job is disability confident
• Duration of the apprenticeship and details of a typical working week
• Wage
• Places you want to get applications (on ‘find an apprenticeship’ or an external site)

You can preview your ad before submitting it. Once submitted you can check the status on your ‘adverts’ dashboard. Once it moves to ‘live’, just watch your applications flow in!