Recruiting Apprentices

Recruiting Apprentices for your business, the “How To” attract the best apprentice talent to your organisation.

As with any recruitment process understanding where best to advertise is key to attracting the top talent to your organisation. Recruiting apprentices is no different to recruiting other members of staff to your business.

There are two ways to recruit or apprentices, either directly and manage the recruitment process from shortlisting to interview and then on-boarding or leave it in the hands of your apprenticeship training provider if you have opted to use an external company to manage this process.

We can’t advise you how the apprenticeship training providers manage their attraction and recruitment campaigns however we can give you some great tips to helping you attract the best apprentice talent for you business.

So you want to hire an apprentice or two?

First thing first, what type of apprenticeship opportunity do you want to offer. Understanding where the gaps are in your business is key, after all the idea of recruiting an apprentice is to train them in how to successfully develop key skills in a job, especially if you struggling to hire candidates in these areas.

Here is an example: If you are a construction company you probably find it hard to recruit Quantity Surveyors? If this is the case then the ideal solution would be to recruit apprentices in this field, which will save you money on future recruitment costs and give you a steady flow of future employees with the required skill set.

It’s always good for an organisation to work hand in hand with their L&D department (if you have one) to implement a succession planning process.

Now you have identified key areas where you would like to train up apprentices then the next step is knowing which apprenticeship training standard you should use to make sure the correct training and qualifications are on offer for your apprentice. 

We've created a brief guide to apprenticeship training.

Create a compelling Apprenticeship Job advert.

Once you have identified which apprenticeship standard you should be using it’s time to write a compelling apprenticeship job advert, making sure to incorporate the following information:

  • The level of apprenticeship on offer
  • The training the apprentice will receive
  • An introduction to your company
  • The salary on offer and potentially what they could earn once qualified
  • The qualification they will receive 
  • The time it will take to complete the apprenticeship
  • And most important their job role and responsibilities

Then when the apprenticeship job description is complete it’s time to advertise your apprenticeship opportunity. We recommend using niche websites, like ourselves, others are available. Using an apprenticeship jobs website will increase you candidate attraction and also save you time in sifting and shortlisting over using a generalist jobs website. The reason for this is when a candidate applies for an apprenticeship on one of these niche sites they are fully aware of what they are applying to, not just sending their application by hitting an apply button through a jobs list email.

What next? Well thats about it really, all you would then need to do is wait for applications to your apprenticeship opportunity and then start the shortlisting and interview process to identify the right match for your apprenticeship.

Register your company to hire an apprentice