Apprenticeship Support and Knowledge for Schools A ‘How to’ guide for students and teachers on signing up to the Find An Apprenticeship service and applying for vacancies online This is a guide to demonstrate how to sign up to and use the Find an Apprenticeship website.

‘How to?’ Guide This presentation will give you a step-by-step guide on how to: Sign up to the Find An Apprenticeship Service Browse Vacancies Set up Alerts Use the Journey Planner The information includes: How to Sign up to the online service How to browse vacancies How to set up alerts How to use the journey planning tool IMPORTANT: You will need an active email address you have access to before you start, so that you can receive the verification email and activation code.

The First Step is to search: Use Google to search ‘Find an Apprenticeship’ and click the www.gov.uk/apply-apprenticeship link to resister online OR type and search: https://www.gov.uk/apply-apprenticeship You can type the link manually or search ‘find an apprenticeship’ in Google – there are often ‘ad’ links that appear first so make sure you select the correct link.

Create an account To create an account click the underlined blue instructions.

This is the information you will need to complete to create an account. The password needs to use both upper and lower case characters, contain a number and be at least 8 characters long. You must accept the terms and conditions but you can choose whether or not to ‘receive the latest careers news and updates’.

Your Activation Code You will now need to access your emails to use the Activation Code you will have been sent after completing the ‘Create an Account’ page. Make sure to check your Junk mailbox if the email hasn’t come through to your inbox. You will receive an email, like in the screenshot and to activate your account you click the ‘Activate your account’ hyperlink. You’ll also need to enter the code included in the email onto the link that will open. IMPORTANT – the code you are sent will expire in 30 days, so encourage users to log on straight away. Name

Enter your code and activate your account The link in your emails will take you to this page, where you will need to enter the Activation code from your email, and click ‘Activate account’ button.

You’ll be asked to fill in a few more Equality and Diversity questions… On the next page you’ll be asked some Equality and Diversity related questions. This is to help with your account search criteria but also because some companies are part of the ‘Two Tick Scheme’ which supports people with disabilities in work. (Ref. to ‘Two Ticks’ presentation for further information)

If you included a phone number when submitting your details you’ll see this message: 07000000000. You’ll also need to verify the contact number you provided, by clicking verify your number hyperlink. This will take you to a page to enter the code you will have received in a text message. This message will be at the top of the page once you’ve registered on the Find an Apprenticeship Service. To disable notifications to your mobile, go to settings, which is found at the top right of each page.

And now you’re ready to search! You can search by key word and your location. For example – Hairdressing Newcastle There’s also a helpline for support and more information on Apprenticeships and Traineeships Now that you are registered you are set up and ready to search. You can use a Key word, your location, or both to search for vacancies. You can change the radius you want to search and you can also specify what level of apprenticeship you want to search for. You can also change to the ‘Browse’ tab to search by sector and the ‘Saved searches’ tab takes you to previous searches you have conducted that you saved at the time.

And a step-by-step guide for searching when you click this! You can click the ‘How to search for an apprenticeship’ link and this will give you an interactive guide through the search process, giving you explanations for each section – just click Next for the next part of the walkthrough.

You can scroll through the results… Click to receive alerts for this specific search Sort your results by: Closing date Distance And Recently added vacancies Once you’ve searched, this is what vacancies will look like. The top of the page tells you how many results you search has rendered and you can also click to ‘receive alerts for this search’ and you can select to receive texts or emails (or both) notifications when an apprenticeship matching this search criteria comes online. You can sort the results by most recent closing date, distance from your postcode and recently added vacancies.

You can also plan your travel using the ‘Journey Time’ tool to see how long it would take to get to this place of work by Driving, Bus or Train, Walking and Cycling! Most vacancies also contain a small map and each vacancy states the ‘distance’ to this vacancy from your provided postcode. By clicking the ‘Journey time’ link you can select from Driving, Bus/Train, Walking or Cycling to help you with planning your journey to this place of work, and to help with deciding if this is a suitable position to apply for.

Click to resume application Applying for a vacancy Your contact details will be filled in but you’ll need to fill out the following for each application: Click to apply Click to resume application To apply for a position, click the vacancy title and you’ll get a full summary of the position. Here you’ll see a green ‘Apply for apprenticeship’ button – click this to apply. If you’ve already started applying for a vacancy you can also click ‘Resume application.’. Your details including contact number, email, address and date of birth will be filled out (according to the details you register with) but you’ll need to fill out: Education – you’ll need to submit the most recent educational establishment you attended and the dates you attended. Qualifications – you can submit multiple qualifications and you can also tick ‘predicted grades’ if you’re waiting for your results for example. You can select from GCSE, AS/A Level, BTEC, NVQ/SVQ levels 1, 2 and 3 and other and you’ll need to enter the subject and grade achieved. If you select ‘other’ you’ll also be required to provide the name of the qualification.

Applying for a vacancy Continued… The application form will also ask you to provide any details relating to work experience or training courses you may have taken part in. Work experience – you’ll be asked to provide the employers name (company name or person), your job title, a summary of your main duties and the dates of this work experience – you can select ‘current’ if you’re still working with this employer. Training courses – Similar to work experience you’ll need to provide the provider name, the course title and the dates you were on the training course.

Applying for a vacancy Continued… There is also an ‘About you’ section and sometimes ‘Additional questions’ There’s also an opportunity to highlight your strengths in the application, express what you would like to improve on during the apprenticeship as well as detail any hobbies and interests you have that may support your application. Sometimes the employers add additional questions to the application if they want to ask something specific. It’s very important to fill these in.

Applying for a vacancy Continued… You’re asked a few final questions to support as many applications as possible and from here you can ‘save’ your application for later. After you click ‘Save and continue’ there’s a ‘Check your application’ and a ‘Submitted’ page. You’re asked some final equality and diversity questions, on opportunity to express any support you may require for an interview and then you can save you application and go back to it later, or save and continue to the next page. You’re given the opportunity to review your application, before you submit it, so you can see what it looks like going to the employer.