VOID Reviews 6

I completed the 12 week cyber security skills for life bootcamp in October 2024. The classes were organised by openclassrooms, and were a basic introduction to cyber security. I learned how to keep up to date with the latest cyber security news, how to do risk assessment and vulnerability scanning, and ways to respond to cyber security incidents. The course consisted of 4 assignments in which you work in a junior cyber security role for a fictional company, write an executive report and present it to your manager. I think the course could go into a bit more technical detail to make it suit cyber security job descriptions better.

Additionally I receive help with my job search from AMS for up to 6 months after completion of the bootcamp. So far my career coach has been quite helpful with advice about my CV and cover letters, and recommending open positions. At the start of the bootcamp I was promised a guaranteed interview after completion, which hasn't taken place yet. In my weekly meetings I'm reassured that they're working on it.

I completed a course with this company from October 2023 – January 2024 in Digital Marketing, and wish I hadn’t, as I was fed a bunch of lies.

At the outset AMS promised a guaranteed interview upon completion of the course, from one of the 100s of companies in their portfolio. They assured me I would receive support to help me find work and secure an interview with a company in my area. I had informed them of the area that I live in (being the north west) and they had said this was fine, and they could find work here.

I finished the course in the first week of January 2024 and was optimistic for the help I would receive, but was unprepared for the dire service I was going to experience.

AMS Talent Lab Support consists of 3 things….

1)
A series of webinars that range from completely basic e.g. learn how to write a CV, to completely useless e.g. a webinar by a particular company talking about upcoming positions they have in topics that you likely haven’t studied, located in areas in which you don’t live. I attended a couple of the webinars but they were that pathetic, I didn’t attend anymore. One of them was centred around the term ‘networking’ and asked us all to choose an answer (from a multiple-choice list) of what it meant. One of the answers was ‘a spider who makes a web’. What age group are these webinars directed at?! I was told that unfortunately they’re a ‘one size fits all and not suitable for everyone’.

2)
A weekly newsletter. The newsletter goes out on a Friday and covers all cohorts and all subjects taught. It features a list of available opportunities, usually grouped by region. And it lists a handful of websites to search for work. This newsletter was consistently useless. It rarely featured ANY jobs within my region and when it did, none of them were in the subject I’d studied. I raised this issue several times and was told ‘we have more vacancies coming up soon, keep your eye on the newsletter, it will get better’. It never did, it was a lie, no one cared. And the list of websites they provided were pitiful. Several of them didn’t even let me search the NW region for work, there was simply no option to do so, and a handful were for minority groups and people with learning disabilities. When I asked for any other resources, no one ever provided me with any.

3)
A fortnightly phone-call to ask how things are going. My first job coach was a young girl in her early to mid-twenties who was clueless of how to help. She couldn’t think of anywhere to look for roles and gave me poor advice about my CV (confirmed by the national careers service when I showed them). When I mentioned about there being a lack of jobs around, she would just tell me it was ‘early days’, this went on and on. She then went off work on long-term leave and I was given a guy in place of her, again in his mid-twenties who was even more clueless. He told me on several occasions that he was going to personally reach out to some of his contacts in my area and get back to me about positions, but he never bothered. – All he could suggest was for me to arrange a skype session with a careers advisor from Open Classrooms who had taught us the Digital Marketing course. – I did this and surprise surprise, she was equally useless. In fact, during the meeting she informed me that ‘really speaking Digital Marketing is for youngsters who like social media’. Huh? She advised me to reach out to companies on LinkedIn asking for work, which I did and it went nowhere. A week later she linked me to a job for a ‘Business Analyst’ requiring business analysis experience! – What did that have to do with Digital Marketing? – When I told the job coach at AMS, he told me that she just had my best intentions at heart. What, by finding me a job that I don’t have the experience for?!

The fortnightly phone-calls stopped after 7 weeks or so and I never heard another thing from AMS Talent Lab. I have been left to it, there was no interview upon completion of the course and there has been little to no support from them.

The bootcamp was a waste of time that will ultimately lead nowhere. Do yourself a favour and AVOID AMS Talent Lab at all costs. What they promise you, they simply don't deliver. I know of several other students in the same boat.

AMS supported me through my Skills Bootcamp application and after I completed it my candidate consultant Georgina helped build my confidence in searching for a role within Project Management.

Don’t know why AMS will allow you prepare for interview and then after being success, they will ring u the next day after sending documents for onboarding that the bank said it’s on hold. Happened twice to me at NatWest and nationwide. This is so bad and shows a bad relationship with your clients. I think I will stop going through them.

It is all very well telling customers and umbrella customers how good you are,but, as an umbrella customer,I have had to contact them to sort things out, this week they did not provide my pay administrator with a time sheet, I am fed up of having to contact them for something,worst of all no phone numbers on emails,do they care?somebody at the top needs to get it sorted wish I had gone somewhere else.Rant over, typ company tells you how great they are ,once you are a customer,tough.

Need to be more responsive to candidates.