Applying for an apprenticeship: Software Development (Level 4)

[Shades]

Software Development (Level 4)

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What you’ll need:

• 5 GCSE’s Grade A* – C or Grade 4 and above including Maths and English language plus 2 A Levels at grade A*-D or equivalent.
  • C in Maths & B in IT is all I have.
• As part of the qualifications above you should have an A-Level (A*-D) or GCSE (A*-C) in an IT subject (or equivalent) or existing knowledge of any programming language including conditional statements, arrays, loops and error handling.
  • I have a DMM in BTEC Level 3 I.T & a Pass in BTEC Level 2 I.T
  • I know somewhat of PHP, HTML & CSS
  • I set my own VPS up using Debian 10 & Command Line
  • I use Sublime Text 3 to upload my work to Git and from Git I push to my server. 

 

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Now, I don't have the require grades however, there can be exception mades if I show I have an interest. So, maybe having a portfolio and showcasing my work can help me out. However, I am stuck and not sure what to add in my portfolio.

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Job overview

Our software teams write the computer programs which keeps London moving.  Learn to write professional, high quality code using the full range of Microsoft technologies, whilst gaining experience on some of London’s largest and most innovative software systems.

What will I be doing?

Some of the placements you could complete are Backend Developer on the Journey Planner App, Online Developer and Web Developer.

When you start, all our apprentices attend a 6-week boot camp, run on-site by our own senior developers, where you learn the basics of writing code, creating websites, mobile apps and using the Cloud.

 

So, if anyone can help me out would mean a lot to me! I have a passion in this field. I want to do something with my life lmao.

[Dave]

Ironically I started my career ~8 years ago doing an apprenticeship at a Digital Agency that used this piece of software called Magento, I now work for Magento owning a product and leading a team, so I can certainly say these apprenticeships are pretty good.

I was in the same position as you, I lacked most of the requirements and grades needed for the job, however like you're doing I slaved away at putting together a comprehensive portfolio of every project I'd ever worked on (including my MCCode mods at the time). This along with my ambition in the interview was what won me the job against ~20 or so other applicants. 

I'd recommend researching into the company that you're applying for and create things that'd be relevant to their business, in the job overview it mentions "Microsoft technologies" so looking into .NET and other Microsoft languages might be a good idea (TypeScript is also pretty fun!). I'd probe more into what their products are and how they're built and start trying to learn and apply some of those skills to show the interviewer, build an example app using one of their apis, build a similar website / app to what they already do etc.

Also you should probably switch to Microsoft VSCode, just because they use Microsoft products (joke intended ?).

Apart from that I'd include anything you've previously worked on. You're really aiming to sell your ambition and willingness to learn to the interviewer rather than your existing skills. Be passionate, be ambitious and you'll do great I'm sure!