Creative Alliance has an ongoing campaign to speak to apprentices - past, present and future - to tell the stories of how Creative Alliance enables talent to forge the career they deserve.

Jordan Walker’s story is an example of how organisations have worked together to provide a climbing frame for local talent into the industry: from unemployed to McCann in under 3 years. Jordan, from Handsworth, was unemployed in 2015. We asked him what he was doing before joining BBC’s Make it Digital training programme with Creative Alliance:

“I studied Business Studies, I.T and Law at Aston Manor Sixth form and left with two distinction* grades and one distinction. I had received no help in gaining work experience in my desired field and so independently found myself a placement at Miromedia Limited, a marketing agency, doing web design for a week which opened my eyes to working at a marketing agency.

At the time I came across the Make it Digital course, I had taken a deferred year from Manchester Metropolitan. I wanted to use that time to develop my skills in web development and gain experience which I hoped would lead to getting hired quicker with a better job once I graduated. It wasn’t too long until I found out I could get an apprenticeship through Make it Digital which made it worthwhile dropping the traditional path of graduating before finding a job.”

The traineeship involved 5 weeks with Creative Alliance learning different digital skills from a curriculum developed by the BBC. This was followed by a 3-week work experience. We talked about what his experience was like on the Make it Digital Course:

“Before Make it digital, you would never ever find me standing up and talking in front of a large group of people. My success in this gave me a new-found confidence which I never knew I had in me, and impressed many of the employers I encountered.”

CREATIVE ALLIANCE CASE STUDIES – A LEARNER PERSPECTIVEHOME GROWN CREATIVE, DIGITAL & MARKETING TALENT: FROM BAREFACE TO MCCANN

In Jordan’s case it did exactly that. His work placement was with Bareface, an agency based in Digbeth, who had a long-standing partnership with Creative Alliance. MD Simon Morris explains:

“We could see something in Jordan: he had an interest in the work that we could build upon. But he was by no means ready for a full-time job. There are ways of behaving in a professional work place that people must learn. We saw enough potential in Jordan to know it was worth us investing our time in him with the support from Creative Alliance and the apprenticeship is the perfect vehicle for that.”

Jordan remarked something similar:

“I believed what Bareface was doing was perfect for me, it was a small agency with a very experienced dev team that I could really learn from. Colossal would be an understatement for the amount of knowledge I had learn within my apprenticeship, coming in as an inexperienced web developer who could barely write CSS. To summarise: I learnt PHP, JavaScript and SCSS to develop dynamic websites, I also learnt how to put WordPress sites together and how to build a LEMP environment for development, staging and production websites. Learning in the workplace helped develop these skills in a real-world environment where I could immediately apply them.”

Once Jordan had successfully completed his twelve-month apprenticeship in May 2016 he was offered a fulltime position with Bareface as a junior web developer. Jordan thrived in that role and was delivering increasingly challenging briefs for clients of the agency. As is inevitable in any well-connected industry sector Jordan started developing his own networks. With his new-found confidence to seek out new challenges and opportunities, in October 2017 he successfully secured himself a promotion to the role of Developer within McCann.

We asked Jordan why he felt he was able to get that move into McCann:

“Over the 2 years I spent at Bareface I had accumulated various pieces of knowledge. I believe that this knowledge, combined with my experience and a strong desire to spread my wings by working on bigger projects, is what made me successful in joining McCann. My responsibilities are pretty similar to what I did at Bareface, only with more weight added to them. I am also involved in more meetings with the team where we would discuss projects using AGILE methodology. I enjoy this because not only does it improve the communication amongst the team, it helps with getting to know my colleagues better. I also enjoy that I’m working on more than just WordPress projects now, we usually use Laraval to build our projects from the ground up which is much more fun and a bunch more to learn.”

This is just one example of partnership between employers and training providers creating the climbing frame for home grown talent for the region’s creative and cultural industries that cannot be denied. Jordan’s story is not an unusual one in the Creative Alliance office.

Getting a top position in a large company can take decades. Hard work, dedication, setbacks and a little bit of luck are often the ingredients for success. Quite often those initial stages of a career can dictate what happens in the future.

Creative Alliance are a training provider that specialise in creative, digital and marketing apprenticeships and part of what we do is help people nurture and forge their career in the creative, cultural and digital sector. With 85% of our apprenticeships resulting in a full-time role with a company or the movement to further education, we have hundreds of success stories of helping people forging their career. But the story of Tom Veasey going from an apprenticeship to Disney is a special one.

Tom Veasey from Coventry, at the age of 24, is working as a senior ship wide technician in audio for Disney Cruise lines - one of the fastest rises in Disney’s history for a technician. And he started as an apprentice with Creative Alliance at his local school’s theatre – the first stepping stone to getting his job with Disney. To get a true insight into the story we spoke to Tom and Simon Veasey (Tom’s Father) about his journey.

Simon was an incredibly open and chatty interviewee who you could tell was immensely proud of his son’s achievement and has no doubt that the apprenticeship gave Tom the foundation for his sky-rocketing career.

Tom was understandably humble about his achievement but spoke openly about his career.

First question for Simon was to look at his understanding of apprenticeships as a parent:

SIMON: “Well firstly I was an apprentice, except back then it was 5 years long. I knew the modern apprenticeships were much shorter but that was about as much I knew. I also didn’t know that they were available for Toms chosen field (Audio Technician).”

CREATIVE ALLIANCE CASE STUDIES – A PARENT PERSPECTIVEONCE UPON A TIME FROM AN APPRENTICESHIP TO DISNEY

We spoke about Tom’s journey into his first role in the apprenticeship…

SIMON: “Tom and I were discussing University, but Tom was not keen. He and another student were volunteering at their school (Blue Coats Church of England school) and the headmaster had called and spoken about an apprenticeship for Tom. This felt like a good fit for Tom and as he wasn’t keen on University - so Tom accepted the offer”

Simon was obviously very passionate about Tom’s success and was keen to talk more about Tom’s career and his support the apprenticeship programme.

SIMON: “The apprenticeship got Tom working with a very diverse range of people, not his peers, but people with a range of skills. This meant that his skills and knowledge grew, and his confidence grew also. Not just in technical skills but also in communication. Seeing that transformation from someone who was a true techy moving into someone who could communicate professionally was a key stone for him moving to his role with Disney.”

On speaking with Tom he reiterated this point too. Tom spoke about what the apprenticeship had given him.

TOM: “Working with lots of different technical people at my apprenticeship really helped me. There were the skills in working with equipment, and not just modern equipment but also older equipment and older more traditional skills which would benefit me hugely in the future as not all places have the best equipment. It also helped me with my confidence in communicating, my boss at Blue Coat (School) actually made me answer phone calls, he put the phone on my desk and it pushed me into somewhere I was not initially comfortable with. But as my confidence grew I was working with suppliers who wanted to come to the theatre, to musicians, technicians and even selling the theatres services. This was real life experience.”

We then talked about the support Creative Alliance had provided throughout the apprenticeship.

TOM: “My assessor was incredibly knowledgeable about the industry, answering any queries I had and signposting me to resources about technology, information and people I needed. The structure of the course was really varied. I did a Level 3 apprenticeship in Technical Theatre focussing on sound. The way the course was delivered meant that I had to look at different elements of my role, like looking at stage management and lighting even though that wasn’t my main focus. What this meant is I had that additional knowledge of different elements of managing a theatre and this I feel has given me the edge for my career moving forward. Going from a school to the largest entertainment company in the world having a full range of experience helps enormously.”

But what about life beyond his apprenticeship?

SIMON: “Tom worked for the school for a few years after he was offered a full-time role. Which in itself was great. Tom did come home one day and say there had been talks of redundancies at the school. It had troubled him, and he was looking at some freelance work. He had already done some work for festivals and other events but nothing major. Tom always got the Stage magazine and came down one day saying there was a job advert for a general technician for the Disney cruise lines. I asked where it was based, and he said it was in Florida. I initially said you don’t even leave your room let alone travel to Florida. But he seemed very keen on it so I supported him - what’s the harm?

Together we worked on the application and I made sure all his experience was on there. We didn’t hear anything for a few weeks and then Tom got a call to say that they felt he was too experienced for the general technician role, but they wanted to meet him for a more senior role. We went to Hammersmith and Tom was interviewed by the head of tech and they really drilled him for his technical knowledge. Then not long after he was offered the job. He was flown to Florida and started his work on the ship. They said that 2,500 people had applied for the job.”

Simon went on to say how Tom had been promoted incredibly quickly and now sits as Senior Ship Wide technician in Audio - managing the all audio on the ship, all musicians, audio team and ensuring the quality that Disney expect. Tom went on to say that in regard to the cruise lines he is right at the top now with only one position above him. He has changed ship and recently worked in Alaska.

TOM: “For the creative sector I believe that apprenticeships really are the best way to get into the industry. Getting contacts, learning the craft with people who know it rather than with people your own age, learning the old skills as well as the new helps you develop further and you earn money as well. You learn and earn.”

This is a wonderful story of someone who worked very hard with the opportunities he was given. You do not move up without putting in graft. Tom is not alone with his story and there are many young people who have forged their career in the Creative industries through a Creative Alliance apprenticeship. With apprenticeships in Theatre, Digital Marketing, Design, Film, Radio and Web design and more and more companies posting vacancies with Creative Alliance is it time for you or your children to seek a career in the creative, digital or marketing world.

Black Country Touring are a theatre and arts-based touring company that work with a range of people and communities to provide professional theatre, community cinema and dance productions in the Black Country and nationwide. They create interesting theatre in interesting places with productions on stage, in schools and even in camper trailers. They create art that is professional, thought provoking and accessible to local people.

As part of our promotion of employers and their apprentices we spoke to businesses that have taken on more than one apprentice. Black Country Touring have an apprentice and also employed one of our apprentices to a full-time role - they are a fantastic example of how a business can develop with a Creative Alliance apprentice.

Their first apprentice is a business admin apprentice working in a creative environment. This apprentice was very keen to work for Black Country Touring Company; she volunteered at the company and when she left school she entered an apprenticeship. I spoke to Deb Justice the Office Manager for Black Country Touring Company (BCTC) about the introduction of an apprentice.

Initially BCTC wanted an apprentice to help develop the business and lessen work load on the rest of the business. They also benefitted from having a young, passionate, woman who wanted to get into the creative and cultural industry. As a company dedicated to supporting local communities that meant protecting and developing the young people who are show such dedication. I asked how the learner had developed in the first few months.

Deb explained “At first it was more work for me – helping develop the apprentice, getting her to understand the company and the job she was requested to do. But after a few months we ended up having a young person’s viewpoint to the company and challenging the productions we put on; as well as a hardworking employee.”

Deb referenced a young person festival that BCTC was involved with and how the apprentices influence had helped the way they approached the festival to make it more appealing to young people.

“Our experience has been really positive”

Their second experience of an apprentice was when they employed a former Creative Alliance apprentice to the role of Communications Assistant. The applicants experience, knowledge and understanding gained through her training with Creative Alliance meant that she took on a much higher position and BCTC are reaping the benefits.

Deb she was really happy with her apprentice and the development of her current employee too. As a company they are not only able to develop a young person with an apprenticeship position but also grow their business with a qualified former apprentice in their company. Using apprenticeships and apprentice training from Creative Alliance is making sure that a positive, modern and local cultural industry will prevail.

CREATIVE ALLIANCE CASE STUDIES – AN EMPLOYER PERSPECTIVEA TOURING COMPANY SUPPORTS YOUNG PEOPLE INTO CAREERS