"How to Win a Job" was a social event rounding speakers to bring insight into the gruelling task of tackling job interviews. The event was organised by the Young Professional section of IET VIC and targeted at students looking at the job market. Speakers included recruitment consultants and industry professionals with vast experiences in recruitment sector.

 

Whether starting out looking for internships, vac work or your first industry job, where do you begin?


Con Moraitis (Senior Co-Ord, Student Career Services) suggested to students explore resources at their universities. Career counselling, resume development services and skills development workshops are some of the resources student might find handy. Additionally Career Expos and Employer presentations are also likely stops to narrow down a prospective industry career.

 

Next Justine Frost (Graduate recruitment professional at KPMG) followed through with her experience within the recruitment arena. Justine informed students that practicing behavioural interviews and online psychometric tests are a great way to ease into the graduate job process. Along with providing a concise guide on how the graduate recruitment process worked, Justine shared tricks and strategies to approach the graduate process and stand out in an interview.

 

Often people “register” with recruitment agencies to cover other opportunities in a job market.

Jessica Reesby runs one such agency (Reesby I.T Recruitment) that recruits for IT companies in Australia. Jessica shared with the group about the use pf screening software to filter the right talent for the job sorting process and tips to stand out from the rest of the applicants at an interview. Resumes that are tapered to highlight skills (graded to experience level) for a particular role have higher potential to get call backs from an agency compared to ones just list skills .

 

The final two speakers chose to discuss the “winning mindset” in landing a job. Familiarising with a company’s online profile before an interview tells your employer you know a bit about them. Mark Cook (AECOM) stressed the importance of conveying long term goals to your employer. He shared interviewees often need to think on how to tackle this question based on their current role, skills learned and the company's future growth.

 

Our final speaker Ludovic Grosjean chose a more personal touch in sharing his experiences after graduation. The group exercised a whole minute to ponder on goals if money wasn’t a factor. He believes following through your passion can lead to being a successful asset in a team.

 

Throughout the event a recurring theme was to build a solid identity while navigating the job market, keep it simple- be you.

 

After the event students and presenters networked over refreshments. Students in attendance expressed interest in other events organised by the IET VIC.


Credits:

Author: Jeffrey Joy

Image: Alex Baker