Jasmin Devonshire’s Apprenticeship Journey
After studying contemporary music theatre at university, I wasn’t sure about my path. I spent years in hospitality, running estates, and everything in between but I never felt fulfilled in the workplace I was just moving from one project to another without finding the place to call home. My health deteriorated in the form of seizures and the fear of a badly timed seizure started to control my life.
I’ve always had a good eye for patterns and improving things, and wanted to keep feeling like I was making a difference – as these were the best parts of my career journey so far. All my roles in every job – good or bad – had given me a chance to make things better for people but also improve the status quo. I just didn’t know exactly what this would look like!
I was fortunate to have many friends in different industries – so when I was looking for that ‘what next?’ answer, I spoke to as many people in as many jobs as I could – this was a defining moment in my journey. I spoke to friends who worked at Transparity, this was an eye-opening moment – there are businesses out there that care for their staff and want to do good things in the world. But how could I possibly get into a business like that with no skills, having never worked in Tech?
I started learning on my own using Microsoft Learn and found out more about Transparity and the Transparity Academy. A partner at the cutting edge of technology with an amazing culture and with focus on developing the next wave of talent and championing women in Tech! I knew this is where I wanted to be. I took the plunge and applied as an apprentice!
I chose an apprenticeship as this gave me a way into an industry that is harder to enter without existing experience and a chance to train and work at the same time. I could not think of a better way to develop a solid foundation of knowledge whilst beginning to get experience in my dream role.
I came into Transparity on the Cloud Technician apprenticeship however with the support of both QA Apprenticeships and Transparity I have been provided the opportunity to explore and learn on a path that could twist and turn alongside business need, my health conditions, and the direction my interest has naturally developed onto the Data Essentials apprenticeship and a tailored role.
You may think that there is nothing in Technology to suit you or your skill set but my advice would be to explore. I am now in a position that both myself and Transparity didn’t know would exist!
- Have constructive conversations
- Never stop learning
- Listen to yourself
- You can always change your mind
- And biggest of all – BE BRAVE!
My role is Service Operations Administrator – what this means at a high level is I look after the tools and systems we use to deliver support to customers and internal staff. I maintain and clean the data across these systems and identify chargeable work which is reported back to management for billing. Where I get to really learn and grow is analysing this data looking for trends and patterns and reporting back to the management team any areas of training and improvements that could be made. I am very lucky in also being able to play a part in implementing the changes and improvements to our processes and create the technical documentation. This role allows me the flexibility and scope to work with multiple departments and put the lessons I have learned on the apprenticeship into practice every day which is incredibly rewarding.
I feel very lucky and I am very grateful to everyone who has helped me get onto this path and to give me the feeling for the first time in my life that I know what I want to do and in a culture that will help me continue to learn and develop long after the end of the apprenticeship.
