Kirsty Robertson

"Kirsty is a friendly, honest and creative individual. These attributes suit her role whereby she has to communicate between various people that are on site in order to get the job done. This emphasises her suitability to the ‘Communicator’ personality type. In addition to this, Kirsty sees her ability to communicate as a good skill to have when it comes to training the next round of apprentices, reflecting why she relates well to both the ‘Coach’ and ‘Trainer’ personality type. "

"Kirsty is a trained Electrical Technician who is currently studying for her Degree in Electrical Engineering as well as working full time. She started off as an Electrical Apprentice, studying for her qualifications at the same time as working on, and learning about, all types of industrial electrical systems.Kirsty works at a large power plant in Scotland. As an Electrical Apprentice, Kirsty studied for her qualifications at the same time as working on, and learning about, all types of industrial electrical systems. Much of her work deals with the maintenance and installation of new and old electrical systems. Her job is filled with variety; she can be performing maintenance on systems like cranes, lights, fire alarms or, she could be installing huge panels or lights. Her favourite part of the job is installing or stripping out cables! As an apprentice she has had opportunity to study alongside her work and has all her college fees paid.She has recently completed her apprenticeship and has progressed to be a qualified tradesperson. There are lots of opportunities to progress for Kirsty, there are many courses on offer that she can enrol on to better herself - and she knows her employer will support this! "

"Kirsty has always wanted to do something in engineering but had reservations about it being a male dominated industry – Kirsty wanted to show that women could be just as good at the job. And that is exactly what she has done. Taking the Apprenticeship route appealed to Kirsty as her mum worked for apprentice training and she always thought it would be awesome to go through the same process. When Kirsty applied for the job, she got an interview and was put in as a reserve but did not get the job that year. She applied again the next year and got the job! Kirsty holds a SVQ LV3 in Electrical Maintenance. As an apprentice, her starting salary was £12,000."

"In Kirsty’s spare time she volunteers for Girlguiding in Caithness, she says volunteering is a great way to give back to the community and is proven to improve self-confidence and gives you a sense of pride. In addition to this, Kirsty likes to travel a lot! She also has a passion for Formula One – maybe the reason that she sees herself as an engineer in the future!"

"In a typical day at work, Kirsty will complete various types of electrical maintenance or corrective work. There is no working day that isn’t exactly the same in Kirsty’s job role as there is such a variety in the equipment she can be working on, and a variety of things that can go wrong with each set of equipment.The main outcome of Kirsty’s day is to get as much work as she can do, while continuing to follow the work instruction and working in a safe manor - she was always told as an apprentice that it is better to spread the work load over two days and do it correctly than to rush, rushing can lead to mistakes which could be very harmful when dealing with electricity."

"In her 4th year at school, Kirsty took the following subjects and achieved standard grades:Maths - 1English - 2History - 1Physics - 2Craft and design - 2Graphic communication - 1Art - 1French - 3To get her apprenticeship she required a minimum of a Standard Grade mark 3 in Maths, English, a technical subject and a science.As Kirsty never got the job in 4th year after applying, she went on to do her 5th year and achieved highest in the below subjects:Maths - CEnglish - CGraphic Communication- B Physics - D As she already had the grades in 4th year she got the Apprenticeship, she does however wish she had applied herself more in her 5th year to get higher grades."