Home Grown: Support the Next Generation of JQ Creatives

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On Wednesday 8th March, the School of Jewellery, Vittoria Street, will host Home Grown.

#HomeGrownBrum

The purpose of the Home Grown event is just to plant the seed of a question or to add a little water to a seed that might already be there and is an opportunity for local JQ businesses to consider apprenticeships like never before.

Is there a role in your organisation for a talented young Brummie?

We need more opportunities for talented young people looking for their first break in a creative, digital or marketing role through the apprenticeship route.

It’s not that the academic learning route is better or worse than the vocational route of work based learning, it’s just different and different people suit different ways of learning. We’re missing out on finding the best young talent for our business if we don’t look at all the routes young people might be looking for.  That’s what BCU recognise and why the School of Jewellery are supporting the event. The natural progression for a young person completing an advanced or higher apprenticeship is onto an HND or degree apprenticeship.

Thomas Matthews, one of the talented young people currently looking for digital marketing apprenticeships
Thomas Matthews, one of the talented young people currently looking for digital marketing apprenticeships

If the talent doesn’t find the opportunities here then they’ll move. Great cities, great businesses and great organisations need great people. In our experience of working with hundreds of young people, most don’t think they’re great – yet. We need to give them the opportunities to prove themselves.

This is what Lee Kemp of Vermillion Films, based on Vittoria Street, did when he recruited Reuben Carey as his Production Assistant Apprentice back in September.

“At first I wasn’t confident that we’d get anyone of the calibre we need. I was wrong in that. I could have employed anyone of the final three. Reuben’s already earned his year’s salary in what I have been able to charge him back out as he’s capable of already doing some  great work independently.”

Providing apprenticeship positions at Elonex has been very successful, says their Managing Director Adam Stockton.  “We now have permanent, full-time members of the team who were introduced to us through apprenticeships – and there’s more in the pipeline! We feel an apprenticeship route in to the business should be a fundamental part of the overall recruitment process. Apprenticeships allow the opportunity to find individuals that would otherwise be missed, and provide time and space to really develop skills in a way best suited to your business.”

 

Abi Smith, former apprentice now designer at Elonex
Abi Smith, former apprentice now designer at Elonex

 

And Creative Alliance will be there to provide free support to you every step of the way:  recruitment, induction, training, assessment and progression from or usually into your company.

To book onto this event, please click here. 

About the Organiser

Creative Alliance are the specialist provider of creative, digital and marketing apprenticeships for Birmingham and the Midlands. Quite like the Jewellery Quarter itself, there are other businesses who are a bit similar to Creative Alliance, but none anywhere else in the country who do quite what we do. From digital marketers to makers, web designers to sound engineers, production assistants to account executives we’re working with employers to grow the next generation of talent to work across all the creative and cultural sectors. You can find them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as well as by visiting their website.

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