In 2017, Michelle O’Neill from Kildare was confronted with a difficult decision. With two young children, she was finding that her job in the hospitality industry and the hours associated with her profession were making it exceedingly difficult to achieve any sort of work-life balance.
“I absolutely love the hospitality industry. But I have two children, and the reality was that with the hours, trying to keep a work life/ family balance, it just wasn’t happening.”
O’Neill was also very conscious that while she sought a different career path with more stable working hours, she also wanted an area that would challenge her, and give many opportunities for progression.
It was her mother who referred her to the Insurance Practitioner Apprenticeship Programme, then only in its second year.
“The interesting thing is both my parents worked in the insurance industry. So I grew up thinking insurance is so boring. I listened to their dinner table conversations for my entire life, and really kind of pushed against it for a very long time”.
O’Neill was also acutely aware that as a parent to two young children, she needed to continue to earn a wage as she retrained. “This programme enabled me to go back to college and have my college education paid for, and to get my insurance qualifications at the same time.”
“It was one of those moments where the stars aligned.”
The Insurance Practitioner Apprenticeship first launched in September 2016, and was Ireland's first "earn and learn" honours degree programme. The Government funded apprenticeship is run as a partnership with The Insurance Institute, Atlantic Technological University (ATU) Sligo and Life Insurance Association (LIA). Apprentices pay €600 in registration fees annually, and upon completion of the three year programme they will receive a Level 8 honours degree from ATU, as well as their APA and CIP insurance designations, allowing them to practise as qualified insurance professionals.
"It is worth stating though," says Dermot Murray, CEO of The Insurance Institute, "That the apprenticeship is not for everyone – you need to be extremely hardworking and determined – working full-time and studying is not for the faint hearted – but it is of course entirely worth it for those who are ambitious and committed".
The process of being placed with a firm as an apprentice is not dissimilar to a standard job interview, where prospective apprentices will check the online register of firms with positions available for apprentices, and apply to the firm directly. Applicants prepare a CV and cover letter, and interview directly with the company for their position, companies will then decide if the apprentice is the right fit for them.
O'Neill completed her apprenticeship at Aon, a multi-national financial services firm at their Dublin office. "Aon has a very strong history of mentoring their team members. And this just seemed to be a real natural progression for them to also bring in new talent into the industry through the apprenticeship programme."
She also compliments the support offered from The Insurance Institute, ATU and LIA, as well as that from her colleagues at Aon. “That support was second to none. You could bounce the most banal queries off of your colleagues, and they will take the time to sit and work things through with you. I think that’s probably one of the biggest takeaways that I would take from the apprenticeship programme.”
It was during her apprenticeship at Aon that O’Neill also learned the value of building relationships within the insurance industry. “There’s a huge amount of personality in the industry across the board. And if you want to get a deal done, you’ve got to have good positive relationships – it’s a very small industry, we all know each other.”
The programme itself is built to foster this kind of relationship building, among other practical, transferable skills and relevant competencies, according to Joanne Keane, CEO of LIA. "The programme equips apprentices with the necessary hard and soft skills required for a career in finance, and ensures their learning is always applicable to their day-to-day work, as well as to trends that are coming down the line."
Since completing the apprenticeship programme, O'Neill continued working at Aon for a year, before making the move to AIG, where she specialises in financial lines insurance products. "I love that line of insurance. I'm a bit of a nerd about it. So to say, I'm just under five years in the industry, and I've found a specialised line that I'm a nerd about, I think, is quite telling of how successful the apprenticeship programme actually is."
O’Neill is hopeful that schools and parents will encourage secondary school students to look at the apprenticeships available, as well as further study. “I don’t know what career advice or career counsellors are saying in secondary schools. But I would hope that they can see it’s not all about college, there are apprenticeship programmes as well.”
“And I think if there was any message that I would have for my kids or my nieces or nephews, as they come to Leaving Cert age, I’d definitely be saying to them, look into an apprenticeship, because there’s a huge amount of value in that.”
