Apprentice Daniel joins the Connexis team

Business communications specialist Connexis has taken on its fourth apprentice in the latest stage of a successful partnership with Telford College.

Daniel Tattersall is the latest trainee engineer at the Central Park based company to sign up for the Information Communications Technician Apprenticeship.

The partnership between Telford College and Connexis has been a big success since the company took on its first apprentice through the college in 2009.

The first apprentice, Joe Newton, is now the company’s Technical Director. He said:

“With one exception, every engineer we have recruited since has been an apprentice from Telford College.

After some bad experiences with recruitment prior to 2009, our Managing Director wanted to try a different way, and contacted Telford College with the intention of training an apprentice from scratch, developing the right habits and mindset.

If an experienced engineer is looking for a new job, unless it is a step up in their career, they often bring with them bad habits, or just different ways of doing things that don’t fit with Connexis.

So when we were looking to expand the technical team once again, it made sense to go down the apprenticeship route and speak to Telford College.”

Daniel’s training at Connexis involves a wide range of topics, including traditional telephony, VoIP (Voice over IP), cloud technology, networking, Wi-Fi, and cyber security.

His time in the workplace involves both shadowing other engineers and working on his own. Dan is also working towards professional certifications with the vendors and products that Connexis sells.

He is described by Joe, and managing director William Rowland, as ‘enthusiastic, confident without being over-confident or arrogant, and polite’ – someone who has fitted in well with the rest of the team.

Chris Field, business development manager at Telford College, said:

“Dan is in college with us for one day a week and based at Connexis for the other four.

It means he has the balance of learning theory work, then being able to put it into practice at work, where he also gets to develop his professionalism and experience of a workplace environment.

We visit him at work on regular periods during his apprenticeship to help him build a portfolio of evidence of his work tasks and competence against the criteria of the qualification.”

The Information Communications Technician Apprenticeship is one of a number of apprenticeships offered through Telford College. For details, see www.telfordcollege.ac.uk/join-us/our-courses/apprenticeships.

Chris added:

“Apprenticeships are real jobs – a chance to gain valuable qualifications, alongside real-world work experience.

With an apprenticeship, you’re on a clear career route. There’s a plan in place and a pathway for you to take – and you’ll earn your salary from your very first day on the job. 

Apprenticeships have evolved and expanded significantly in recent years – these days it’s possible to do an apprenticeship in pretty much anything, at any age.”