Preparing for Your Future Career
Choosing to undertake tertiary education can create opportunities and challenges for career-driven individuals. Maximising the time spent completing your studies can create a significant edge for the start of your career.
One of the most important elements to securing a job is the ability to speak from experience in a job application. However, the most valuable work experience is gained from learning on the job in a position relevant to your chosen career. This is known as a Chicken and Egg dilemma in job-seeking which is faced by the 27% of university graduates in Australia who cannot immediately find a position in the workplace.
Real Skills is profoundly aware of this struggle and has tailored the STEM Leaders Program (SLP) to address three key elements: hands-on experience, guidance from mentors, and team collaboration. Participants in our Winter 2020 SLP have been able to achieve significant learnings in these three areas and have shared with us how the program has shaped their careers.
The benefits of hands-on experience
New experiences outside the classroom allow individuals a chance for rapid growth in technical ability and transferable skills. Lauren Wu and Varun Khushal experienced this growth during their SLP.
Lauren said, “I definitely learnt much more on the technical side than I thought I would before coming into the SLP. While it wasn’t something I expected, this was the best thing I took out of the program because it forced me to grow and push myself to learn things on my own. It was also very convenient timing because I’d done a hackathon over this weekend, and I was able to use the skills I’d learnt in this program to help my team. It was very refreshing to work on a project that was much more applicable to the real world, and it gave me motivation to keep studying the things I do.”
Varun stated, “As someone who has not used React and AWS before, the SLP was a new experience for me. However, the opportunities provided by Accenture in developing my skills through their workshops, gave me a better understanding of the technology stack. I believe that these foundations will be beneficial for future applications and careers as I grew my knowledge in industry specific software.”
Mentors are able to contextualise new experiences and help people overcome challenges as experienced by Brendon O’Young and Varun.
Brendon found that, “All the representatives from GHD were supportive when they provided resources and advice to tackle the project brief. In particular, I was able to gain a variety of detailed responses from GHD representatives when I asked a technical question on Slack regarding the project. This support network not only answered my question but provided me tips and examples that enabled me to successfully continue working on part of the project. Having mentors that were supportive, relatable, and knowledgeable enabled me to pose questions and attain feedback on the feasibility of initiatives that my team were putting forwards.”
“I thoroughly enjoyed working with my company, GHD, and mentor, Carl Hastings, because I was interested with their ideals, nature, and engineering principles. Working with seasoned graduates enabled me to learn from their past experiences with common hardships and tribulations, making the learning experience relatable.”
Varun said “Working with the Accenture mentors was a really good opportunity as it allowed me to develop a relationship with industry mentors and learn how a company like Accenture works and the way they approach problems. Furthermore, working with them gave me an insight into what sort of projects a well known consultancy firm does on a day to day basis and the technology stack that they use.”
“I thoroughly enjoyed working with Accenture as it was an excellent opportunity to network with staff from a well-known company. At first, I felt it was a bit strange talking to them as working with mentors was a new experience for all of us, however, through our meetings we really grew into it and felt comfortable in discussing elements of the project. Working with them is an opportunity that I will cherish in the future.”
Collaboration in a diverse team
Recognising and managing a team dynamic are vital to large-scale projects in the workplace. Brendon shared what elements of collaboration he was able to refine with his team.
“Collaboration with a team of individuals who were bright, diligent, and motivated to provide innovative solutions, bolstered my teamwork and communication skills as I was able to pose suggestions and ask questions with confidence. I owe it to my cohesive team who were all supportive and willing to go above-and-beyond when pursuing individually allocated roles and participating in group meetings. My experience with SLP has refined my collaboration skills, enabling me to speak with participants of different age, degree and university — an experience that I found uncommon in group projects at university because I always partnered with my friends who were the same and studied the same degree. But the SLP also provided me with new skills that I would not have developed in the meantime, including the ability to provide constructive criticism and feedback.”
“One of the most important skills that grew from participating in this project was having the chance to provide feedback and ideas to other group members which allows for communal benefit and growth. I found that team diversity engendered this skill to take place because every team member possessed a unique perspective to tackling the problem at hand — in ways and methods that I would have never imagined. Thus, I treasure my time in the STEM Leaders Program because it brought out the best in my teamwork abilities and helped me develop new collaborative ideals with members of diverse backgrounds.”
What are the main takeaways from the participants’ experience?
Lauren, Varun, and Brendon found that getting industry experience early before completing your studies can quickly alleviate the uneasiness of entering the workplace. It is this lack of familiarity that can trip up job applicants, and even new, young employees fresh on the job. We look forward to seeing where all the participants of our STEM Leaders Program end up in their careers and welcome everyone who wants a headstart on their career.
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