My Top 3 Tips for a Successful Career Transition DURING an Apprenticeship!

From Accounting to Information Security: My Journey

I hope this article brings you insight on how you can pivot careers within an apprenticeship! Of course, this also will have to align with the culture of your company. The company I currently intern with, is very big on personal growth, so I am very fortunate there. I am currently in school studying part-time for my associates' degree in Information Security & Analysis at Fayetteville Technical Community College. When I was accepted into Allstate 's Apprenticeship program in August 2023, I had the absolute pleasure of beginning my career as an Accountant. During that time, I learned all about Bank Reconciliation and Simple Matching processes. The team I worked with in the Agent Group Banking Department was amazing. I still cherish how their team worked with one another and how open communication was stressed!

Early in my education journey I had the bright idea of double majoring Accounting and Information Security and Analysis. But once I did the math and realized that it would take me far longer to get both degrees at once rather than one at a time, I decided to drop accounting. Plus, I was gaining the practical knowledge at Allstate anyway, so I decided to just work towards my cybersecurity degree.

Step 1: BE VOCAL ABOUT YOUR GOALS:

So, during the interview I let the hiring managers know early on how interested I was in bridging the gap between cybersecurity and accounting. To me, that became my north star, and guided all my actions within the apprenticeship even though I was in accounting. If you have managers that are willing to work with you, they will have no problem with supporting your career development. Remember, an apprenticeship is supposed to be about fostering your growth, right? So make sure you are taking time and setting up 1:1's with your managers and keeping them up to date on your goals and aspirations.

Step 2: NETWORK, NETWORK, NETWORK:

The beauty about remote apprenticeships is that you can EASILY network with people in your company. I utilized this to my advantage. Whenever we had apprenticeship development sessions, I would always make it a point to be active in the zoom chat, and also take down the name and email of the person giving the presentation. After the session concluded, I would email a "thank-you", and ask them an open ended question to try and continue the conversation. Make sure you send them a message as soon as the session ends that way they know exactly what you are speaking about. Every time I've reached out in this manner, the speakers were incredibly grateful, and they would actually encourage me to set up time on their calendars for a 1:1 session. I would do as they asked, and sometimes this sparked a mentorship! (I still keep in contact with them today). The best advice I can leave you with when it comes to networking, is to be genuine in the way that you are presenting yourself!

If the company that you are interning with has Employee Impact Groups (EIG's), utilize them! Sometimes these groups host networking events where you can meet other individuals in your field and bounce off project ideas with them! Ask about the projects they are working on and how you can help out. Continue to speak about your "North Star".

Step 3: VOLUNTEER!

Remember how I spoke of Employee Impact Groups? Well, sometimes these groups host events for which you can volunteer. One day, my manager in accounting sent me a link for a cybersecurity volunteer opportunity centered around older adults. The day of, I sat in on the webinar and after it concluded, I followed up with the presenter and asked about how I could get started in facilitating these events. The first ever event I ever co-facilitated, had over one hundred participants! But afterwords I was hooked! This tied in with my goal of learning and educating others about cybersecurity, and I still had the opportunity to learn about accounting as well.

How Everything Unfolded

Since I was so vocal about what I wanted from the start, my managers helped foster that curiosity I came into the business with. I was able to get a few mentors in the cybersecurity field early on and learn about the different sides of cybersecurity within the company. I became a regular face on the CyberSafety for Older Adults presentations, and this led to more opportunities to speak to a broader audience and become a Subject Matter Expert on the presentations. By advocating for myself, during my sessions with my Career Advancement Coordinator, I was able to get into contact with the people that could initiate the career transition. When I finally had a meeting with one of the managers of the Cybersecurity department, which took around ten months, I had all of my experiences with hosting CyberSafety for Older Adults that I could speak about. Not to mention the personal hack-a-thons I participated in outside of work, and all the other connections I made in cyber while simultaneously working in the accounting department. The passion in my voice said it all. I wasn't promised anything prior to getting that one-on-one session with the cybersecurity manager, so I just went in to speak about how much I loved the field. As fate would have it, about a week later I was offered a chance to transition to the cybersecurity department, and I was so happy! All hard work paid off.

Believe in Yourself!

Yes, it took ten months, but every moment was so worth it. I met fantastic people in both departments, and not only that, but I also now have a blended apprenticeship experience, gaining experience from Accounting and Information Security. This is going to be invaluable for my career development.

Keep your goals closely aligned with how you operate in your day-to-day life combined with advocating for yourself, and you'll be fine. Remember to make the most out of your time within any apprenticeship so that when it ends, you leave with far more than you came in with.

What are your thoughts? If you care to add anything please do in the comments below, I would love to chat about your career transitions and anything else you would like to share that could be valuable to others.