“I already had the passion… now I feel qualified”: Hollie’s management apprenticeship story

“I had a baby in the middle of the apprenticeship,” says Hollie Haslam CMgr MCMI, who obtained a distinction in her Level 5 Operations/Department Manager apprenticeship last year. “I also work part-time. But one of the great things about an apprenticeship is that you can switch it off and switch it back on again.”

Manchester-based Hollie says she embarked on the apprenticeship before she was pregnant and that she wasn’t thinking about having children at that point. 

“I went in thinking: I want to come out with a qualification, letters after my name. But actually, the apprenticeship helped in various other ways.

“After going on maternity leave, and I’m sure a lot of women would say this, when you come back, you do lose your confidence a bit, coming back to a role you were doing over a year ago when you’ve spent the past 12 months singing nursery rhymes. 

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“But doing the apprenticeship really helped me build that confidence back up. The programme framework is so formalised and supportive that it felt like you had someone hand-holding you throughout.”

“Not for the faint-hearted”

Hollie is an actuary at Mercer, part of Marsh McLennan, a global professional services firm. An actuary advises organisations and trustees on their pension schemes. These can be in either the private or public sector, and large or small. After obtaining a degree in maths at the University of Manchester, she joined Mercer 17 years ago. Today, she has various letters after her name, as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries and a Chartered Manager.