MSQ Partners Invests In Outreach And Training Programmes

Apprenticeship scheme

We’ve just begun working with an organisation called The Industry Club that runs a scheme called Marketing Debuts.

With help from The Industry Club we recruit apprentices aged under 25 years, without a degree and from groups underrepresented in the marketing industry. Candidates are selected on ingenuity, creativity and motivation rather than academics.

The course is a minimum of 12 months - 80 per cent of the apprentice’s time is working in our agencies, 20 per cent of their time is dedicated to learning.

We work across four training programmes:

• Creative Project management

• Social & Digital Community management

• Data Technicians

• Digital Marketer

We pay the apprentice’s salary and a line manager/mentor supports them through their work journey (which we also train the mentors on).

We’re hiring 4-5 apprentices in our UK business (a minimum of two in London and one in at least two of our UK offices) and are agreeing plans with our US and Asia offices to implement a similar model.

In reality, we take on far more apprentices as a group – Stein IAS, twentysix and Walk-In Media also have their own agency apprenticeship schemes that compliments the Marketing Debuts initiative. But Marketing Debuts is MSQ’s commitment to ensure we’re offering diverse thinking across the whole group.

Fellowship scheme

In addition to Marketing Debuts, we’ve also agreed a new Fellowship scheme. This is being run at an MSQ level, with “fellows” spending three months in four disciplines/agencies and graduating after 12 months with a permanent role in the organisation.

Our agencies

Collectively our agency teams are also involved in several key outreaches. Our PR & Content agency Smarts is part of the Movement to Work programme, a government-backed initiative to provide opportunities for young people who have dropped out of the education system. The agency also sponsors award programmes at local universities to help students prepare for life in the industry away from the textbooks, and runs “TEDxStormont”, which helps young people to learn the skills and qualities of delivering persuasive presentations and influencing through communication.

Our digital agency MMT Digital, which was originally founded in Uppingham, has set up a partnership with Corby Technical School (near Uppingham). MMT hosts insight days where they welcome A-level Computer Sciences students from the school and across their Academy Trust to the MMT office. The team showcase the projects they’re working on and explain the Agile methodology, highlighting the different roles in the digital industry available.

MMT has built a reputation in exploring new and innovative ways of training. It has also just kicked off a new six-week accelerated training programme with Vodafone called HyperScale Fast Track, which is a new take on developing talented Systems Engineers.

Our B2B agency Stein IAS recently became the first marketing agency to receive a Princess Royal Training Award, which celebrates the effective delivery of training and its impact on the success of the organisation and its people. And we’re sharing similar best practice across the group.

msqpartners.com