Natasha Drew
GOING 360 WITH BT Natasha Drew is a product manager at BT, working as part of her
providing capabilities to run voting shows and competitions,”
she explains. “This rotation has been very good for me
third rotation of the chartered management degree apprenticeship within the company. Having signed on after completing her A-levels, the apprenticeship is a four-year programme designed for new school leavers – and it’s multifaceted, offering yearly rotations of different sectors within the business. Drew recalls how her first rotation happened to fall into an area that turned out to be a favourite for her – media and broadcast. “My initial role was working in the sales and business development team within media and broadcast,” she describes. “It involved shadowing and being an apprentice with customer bids and working on a business plan for international growth. It was a really great place to start, with all the networking that was involved.” What’s significant about BT ’s approach to apprenticeships is that it’s not as black and white as trying out every part of the business in yearly rotations. Instead, it tailors itself to that specific person’s skill set and preferences, using the rotations as a method of determining this. Take Drew’s experience. Starting out in the media and broadcast sector, she felt that was the area for her from the get-go. In her second rotation, she transitioned into a more commercial sector, before returning in her third to media and broadcast, working in the product department, feeling that she was truly excelling. “I’m currently looking after a product called Agilemedia, which is all about our audience interaction. We work with BT ’s broadcast customers, ONE OF THE KEY THINGS I PERSONALLY GAINED FROM RISE WAS THE NETWORKING POTENTIAL
in terms of developing that product skill set, which is what I think is the beauty of doing a programme like this with BT, purely because it gets you working on so many different things.” Unlike other past mentees, Drew stumbled across Rise via LinkedIn, largely through the pool of contacts she gathered during her time at BT. She attended a Rise networking event, which happened to be about the mentoring programme, leading to her securing a place in the 2019 cohort. “One of the key things I personally gained from Rise was the networking potential – being both an apprentice and a newcomer to the industry, your network base is relatively small and, for me, limited to connections solely from BT,” Drew says. LET’S TALK ABOUT APPRENTICESHIPS It’s undeniable that the worth of university degrees has decreased, as the graduate pool gets larger with each year. As such, employers are increasingly turning their attention to apprenticeships and schemes. Not only does this enable companies to nurture talent within their business from an early stage, but it also equips people with industry- specific skills that you simply don’t get taught in a university setting. Statistics from the UK government show that apprenticeship starts for the first three quarters of 2018/19 increased by 7.1%, compared to the same period the previous year. Drew is a prime example of how an apprenticeship can work effectively, and highlights how apprenticeships are simply not talked about enough. It also emphasises the fact Drew did not have a typical ‘newcomer experience,’ because she was so seamlessly integrated from her education into the apprenticeship programme. “Thanks to the development pathway offered by BT, I felt very supported from the start. Given the nature of what I was entering into, on top of being a newcomer, it’s an easier transition into the world of work,” Drew concludes.
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