Pros
QA offer a reasonable benefits package including the option to purchase holiday, subsidised gym membership, cycle to work scheme, 2 paid charity days per year and 3 days worth of training which can be selected from their own range of courses. No medical or dental though.
Cons
As a Salesperson you will understand that I am largely motivated by the opportunity to earn commission. This used to be an area in which QA were very competitive both within the Apprenticeship sector and compared with many other sales or recruitment jobs. This is no longer the case. In recent months not only has the uncapped commission been very much capped, but the targets have risen to the point where for most staff they are completely unachievable. Should you perform actual miracles and somehow achieve your £80,000 monthly target then you are rewarded with around 1% commission. And an increased target. Additionally, targets are monitored cumulatively over the quarter meaning if you have bad 1st month then you may as well give up on the 2nd and 3rd. This has led to every single Account Manager at the very least having a discreet conversation with a Recruiter. In plenty of cases they are interviewing with competitors with a view to jumping ship and taking their clients with them. Once the sales process is completed there are any number of issues that occur, usually it’s simple things such as paperwork being lost, learners being assigned to the wrong programme or more recently just not having the capacity in the classroom to deliver the programmes that have already been promised to employers in the agreed time frame. Then there are the Skills Coaches who each Apprentice relies on heavily throughout the entirety of their programme. All Skills Coaches are over worked, they cover massive areas and manage caseloads that far exceed what can be reasonably be expected of them. This has unsurprisingly led to a drop in standards and continuous oversights that negatively impact the Apprentice and the relationship with the client. A quick look on any job board will tell you that the Skills Coaches are very under paid when compared to competitors. QA rely on the fact that Skills Coaches are invested in the development of their learners and don’t want to leave them without any support. QA are arrogant about their position in the industry, maybe once upon a time they were at the forefront on Tech Apprenticeships but other providers have not only caught them up but surpassed them.
