Create an Account

We’d suggest you start by creating an account; although you don’t need one to search, you do need to if you want to apply or to set up alerts. First, go to the website www.gov.uk/applyapprenticeship Ignore that big green ‘Search’ button and click on the link underneath to ‘Create an Account’. You will be asked to provide some basic details, like your name, date of birth and your home address. You also need to put in an email address. Make sure it’s an address you can access as you will be emailed an ‘Activation Link’. You will then be asked to create a password. Check your email for the ‘Activation Email’. Once you’ve verified your account, you can sign in using your email address and password in future.

Searching for Vacancies

When you’re ready to start searching, click on the big green ‘Search’ button and you will be presented with a number of options and filters to help refine what you are looking for.

‘Keywords’ gives you the option to search for a particular job title, description or a specific employer so we suggest trying a few different words to see what gets the best results for you. You do need to put in a location, or you might get results from anywhere in the country, so think about where you’ll be living and how far you can reasonably travel.

The ‘Apprenticeship Level’ box gives you the option to search for specific levels of Apprenticeship. However, to start with, we suggest you leave it set at ‘All Levels’ so you don’t miss anything, and so you can see what entry requirements different levels are looking for. If you do have a learning difficulty or disability, then you may want to select ‘Disability Confident’ option. Disability Confident is a scheme that is designed to help employers to recruit and retain disabled people and people with health conditions for their skills and talent.

Finally, when you have put the information into the search filters, click the green ‘Search’ button at the bottom and see what results you get. At the top of the page, it will show you how many results have been returned for that particular search. You may then want to tweak your search filters on the left of the screen and then click on update results. If you click on the

Apprenticeship Job Title, the website will take you through to further details about the vacancy, including details of the apprenticeship qualification itself and who the training provider will be. If you find one you want to apply for, the ‘Apply’ button will be at the bottom of this page; click that and follow the application steps.

Set up Alerts

One of the most useful features of the FAA website is the Alerts function. You can set up an alert at any time to help stay ahead of new vacancies as they are posted. Once you have tried a few search filters and are getting the sorts of vacancy that you are interested in, at the top of the search results page, you will find a bell icon and “Receive alerts for this search” link. Click that. You can then choose to either receive a text/SMS message or an email notifying you whenever a new Apprenticeship is posted which meets the search criteria you have chosen. This is a really useful function at any time of year but it’s also particularly good if you’re starting your search early or if you’re looking for something a bit more unusual.

Tips on Applying

Remember that, unlike college or university applications, Apprenticeships have no set closing date during the year; employers will post vacancies whenever it suits them. It’s therefore really important to start early to make sure that you don’t miss any opportunities: we know of employers who start advertising before Christmas for apprentices who won’t start until the following September.

The FAA website is a live vacancy listing so, if your search returns only a few results, remember to check back in again soon to see what’s been posted recently. (That’s a great time to set up an alert!) Make sure that the email address you use is a professional one. You might have set up a Gmail address that makes your friends snigger but is that what you’d want your future employer to see?

There are some standard questions on the website which you can practise answering ahead. However, employers also have the option to ask two additional questions on their application if they want to. It’s really good to think hard about how you’re going to answer these and get other people (family, friends or teachers) to check these before you submit them. Remember, you can save your application part-completed to come back to later as long as it’s before the closing date. You don’t have to make the application all in one go.

Check, check and check again! Make sure your details are correct, check your spelling and punctuation, and check that you’ve really answered the questions properly. If in doubt, get someone else to check it too. Your application is a bit like your ‘sales brochure’; no employer has time to interview someone who doesn’t look like a good fit so make sure you’re making the best impression that you can.

Don’t leave it until the last minute to apply. Make a note of closing dates but submit your application as soon as you’re happy with it. Sometimes an employer will start interviewing as soon as applications start coming in, or even close a vacancy early, so you don’t want to miss out. You can make as many applications on the FAA website as you want to. We’d urge you to apply to any vacancy that you are interested in, as competition for places can be quite high, but don’t apply just for the sake of it.