What does an industrial office administration apprentice do at KNAPP?

The apprenticeship program is highly valued at KNAPP and comes with many opportunities for career development in the various areas of our company.

In this blog, we put our new apprenticeship program – industrial office administration – at center stage. Find out the exciting things that industrial office administration apprentices do and learn and what they really like about their training program.

As a state-honored training company, we have been providing apprentice training in Hart bei Graz and Leoben for over 30 years. We have about 140 apprentices in training in six different apprenticeships:

• Metal technology (Graz)
• Metal engineering/treatment (Graz)
• Mechatronics (Hart Graz and Leoben)
• Industrial office administration (Graz)
• Application development – coding (Graz)
• Information technology (Graz and Leoben)

The apprenticeship for industrial office administration was introduced in autumn 2022 at KNAPP. We currently have 20 apprentices in their first and second year, getting to know various areas of the company as part of their training.

The industrial office administration apprenticeship takes three years to complete and offers commercial training in an industrial environment. This includes training with programs such as Microsoft Office and SAP, but also technical training in the different areas involved in automated warehouse logistics. In a rolling program that changes every six weeks, the apprentices receive diverse training in the different technical areas of the company, for example, in sales, controlling, HR, marketing, receiving, material planning, procurement and customer service.

Jonas Mandl and Melanie Andritsch are both in the second year of their industrial office administration apprenticeship. We caught up with them to ask them why they chose an apprenticeship, what their day looks like and what they really like about the program.

Jonas: My everyday work is quite varied and what I actually do depends on the department in which I am working. I’m responsible for helping my colleagues in the department and learn as much as I can from them. I get to do everything from writing texts and creating spreadsheets in Excel to completing tasks in SAP.

Melanie: Well, every day is different, and the things we do either working as a team or independently depends on the department. I use the computer a lot, working with programs such as Microsoft Office or SAP, but I have also worked in the warehouse carrying boxes from point A to point B. In our apprenticeship program, sooner or later you get to know almost every area of the company. This is great because it allows me to discover which area suits me best.

Jonas: You don’t need any special experience for the apprenticeship. Basically, it’s enough if you’re motivated and eager to learn new things. Of course, it also helps to have an interest in the economic context and how companies do business.

Melanie: I totally agree with Jonas. You don’t really need any previous experience. It’s important to want to get to know the different areas and being open for new tasks. You should also enjoy working in a team to achieve common goals.

Jonas: The apprenticeship allows me to get an in-depth look into various departments and get a comprehensive understanding of the workflows and processes in the company. I regularly meet new people and encounter new perspectives, which I really enjoy.

Melanie: It’s really fun to get to meet so many new people. Thanks to the rolling program, every couple of weeks I get to check out a new department and meet a lot of new colleagues. This helps me build a good network in the company, and I am also getting a good grasp of how the various departments at KNAPP work together.

You can find more information on our apprenticeship programs and the open spots here!