You’re hired! CPBigwood is keen on advancing apprentices

Property agents CPBigwood have taken on a further tranche of new recruits.

And the company is particularly striving to provide apprenticeship openings for young people.

There have now been 39 new employees since the highly successful merger of the former Bigwood and Curry & Partners in June 2011.

Joseph Scully was the first apprentice taken on and he is now in full time employment with the firm.

There are two others in the credit control team, Alison Scoble and Lee Breeze, one in the accounts department, Zafreen Merchant, while Jack O’Dell is a property administrative assistant in the residential department at the Stratford-upon-Avon office.

Typically apprentices spend an initial year with CPBigwood in a partnership with training provider Protocol Consultancy Services.

Other young professionals who have started in the last few months include Adam Jones and Gemma Sidaway, both residential service charge, and Emily Pickles, junior residential sales negotiator and James Carver, graduate surveyor commercial, both in Stratford.

Managing partner Nigel Curry said: “We recognise that young people and new ideas are the lifeblood of the business.

“We are expanding fast, having opened in London and the East Midlands, so it is vital that there is a ready flow of new blood coming through the system.

“We appreciate that as a caring and professional employer we have a responsibility to provide training and a structured career path which is why our apprenticeship system is so important.

“It hasn’t been going that long and is still a comparatively new experience for us. But it is working well and our intention is certainly to take others on in the future. They are already making an important contribution.”

Mr Curry said he appreciated how difficult it was for school leavers in particular to get a start in work.

“This is our contribution to giving a few that chance and if we can further increase numbers we will.”