by Jake Kyprianou

Dear Avanta readers. I'm Jake, 19 years old and used to work as an actor before joining Avanta. My best known role was in Eastenders, where I played Joe di Marco between 1998-2002. I have recently been taken on by Avanta as an Advanced Customer Services Apprentice in their Tottenham office as part of the organisation’s commitment to tackling youth unemployment.

Monday

Today marks the beginning of National Apprenticeship Week, so everything's about to get a lot busier. The other apprentice and I were sent to quite an exciting all day event with a view to promoting TNG as a key organisation in the sector and working under an inspiring mission statement. Based in a public library, we dealt with any queries people had about the scheme and talked to new prospective candidates who were interested, many of whom filled out applications and were keen for us to get in touch with further information. All in all, a fairly good day, and it was a nice opportunity to get out of the office and physically interact with people who we usually help over the phone.

Tuesday

The apprenticeship involves some fairly surprising elements. For one, the first hour of my day seems to be comprised of email management! I ploughed through a full inbox, replying to the most urgent messages regarding the apprenticeship vacancies I arranged previously. By 10:30 I was on the phone to employers and felt like I was really getting the hang of customer service.

Ended up with three employers agreeing to take on an apprentice, which I was happy with. I'm now typing up the job specification for each role before I email it off to my manager by the end of the day.

After the intensity wound down I managed to squeeze in some day to day tasks, mostly around the customer service work book that urgently needed updating. As action packed as it can get here, I'm glad to have a lot on my plate and learn a lot more about customer care. As strange as it sounds, the more responsibilities I'm given the more productive I seem to be. I guess the old saying is true, "If you want something done, ask someone who's busy."

Wednesday

Got off to a slightly unfortunate start. After realising I might not achieve a target previously set, I decided to really step up and be super active on the phones. By mid morning I had two very positive responses from employers who are keen to take on an apprentice, and this definitely brightened up the rest of my day.

It was also nice to visit the Enfield head office in the afternoon. Denise Ellison, our Director of Skills, asked me to post over a thousand letters to all the employers and learners we've dealt with, so everything was very admin heavy and I was kept fairly busy with a single mission. Even with the machines helping to folding the paper it looks to be a two day job!

Thursday

After lunch things really started to get manic. I spent quite a long time wording a pretty important email and it was nice to have been given the responsibility. I then managed to get hold of a fairly agreeable employer. I would have been happy enough for her to take on one apprentice, but as it turned out she was not only sold on the idea but keen to take on a number closer to the 400 mark.

My Director, Denise, will be covering that from now on, and can hope fully make something happen. For my part, I'll be wrapping it up by liaising the dates via email and arranging a meeting with the company.

Today was also a little daunting as I spent a lot of time with my assessor completing the first assignment for my NVQ Level 3 Customer Service qualification. I'm really happy to have passed, and I was awarded a B. The next hoop to jump will be my maths test on April 5^th for Functional Skills, so I've begun revising and even managed to get in some practice tests.

Friday

Youth employment has been crucial lately. More specifically for me, cold-calling employers in the hope of getting more orders. We're focusing on the vacancies for 16-18-year-olds and trying to get employers interested.

I'm feeling a lot more confident interacting with customers. I managed to get four managers to agree to the offer and an additional two employers showed some definite interest – for now they'd like to be sent some more literature on Avanta in the post before they make up their minds.

Afterwards, it was a real honour to have our local MP, David Lammy come down to visit us. He arrived around lunch time for a tour of the office and a chat with Denise Ellison, our Director of Skills, who spoke to him about the work done by InBiz, which is the self employment arm of Avanta. Fortunately I was able to meet him too for some photographs and a chat. We had a brief talk about apprenticeships and it was very nice of him to ask how I'm doing and show an informed interest in apprenticeships.

After Mr. Lammy left I filled out my weekly reporting sheet and got the sign-off from my manager, Ben Drain, and right afterwards sent a whole bunch of emails to clients.