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I am one member of a national team known as the Career Development Service. We look after our students across all Australian based campuses ensuring that we upskill and support them in their goal of gaining employment in their chosen field. Here is a typical day…..
Early Morning:
The day starts off with a meeting with the Brisbane Speech Pathology Society Executive, who have been busy planning for the upcoming Find Your Future event, a collaboration between the Career Development Service and the Student Society, now in its 4 year of operation. The Executive of the Society has been tenacious in trying to pull the event together this year. It is the first time that the event will be delivered remotely, using the now all too familiar Zoom technology, that we have all come to know and love! As in previous years we will have two Panels of invited guests: An Employer Panel and an Alumni Panel. We’re lucky that we have our regular Employer representatives who look forward to coming to ACU Brisbane each year to tell us what they are looking for when recruiting graduate Speech Pathologists. At the meeting I’m happy to report that we have confirmed speakers from Queensland Health, the Queensland Department of Education, a large Private Hospital network and a leading Private Practice. Likewise, we have fallen on our feet with securing speakers for our Alumni Panel. We try to source new grads each year and we’ve been able to contact a number of last year’s grads who’ve been so willing to oblige. (We remember some of our students, from embedded sessions where we have presented, mock interviews and appointments; so, if you’re a graduating student and you hear from us at about this time next year, you’ll know what we’re calling you for!). This year we’ve even managed to secure a grad who is in a regional location, something that would not normally be possible if we were running an in-person event.
Mid-Morning:
It’s time for a quick look on-line at CareerHub to check the appointments that have been booked for the day and student activity in the on-line review space.
Along with a couple of colleagues, it’s my day to be rostered on to do on-line application reviews, for which we offer a 3 business day turnaround. It’s Grad season for Nursing and Midwifery up and down the Eastern seaboard, so there’s plenty of action on that front: a proliferation of resumes, cover letters and responses to selection criteria across most campuses have come in overnight. It’s a small, though important part of what we do.
I have two Careers Interviews scheduled with students: one on Teams with a Law/Psychology student based in Melbourne and another via telephone with an Exercise Science/Teaching student based in my home town of Brisbane. Most of our interviews are about Career Planning - guiding students in building up their employability skills and helping them to articulate how the skills they possess are aligned to the skills being sought by a prospective graduate employer. Some students require assistance in how to tackle the part-time employment market, although this is less so in the COVID world we are currently navigating. Others require guidance when looking to move faculties to a program to which they are better suited.
Late morning:
It’s time for our weekly National Team meeting, where from many locations around the country we sit and look at each other on a screen that resembles the opening scenes of The Brady Bunch. (Sorry – I think that you had to have been born before 1980 to make sense of that reference!) We each report in on what’s happening on our respective campuses, and on the shared work we are undertaking across schools and faculties and hear updates from our Manager on what is happening elsewhere in the university that requires our involvement, such as Orientation. Some of us are in lockdown; some are not. It’s safe to say that for most of us it’s the highlight of the week as we all get together, to keep up with what’s going on and stay connected in this challenging national space within which we operate.
Lunchtime Drop-In:
Each day for an hour, students are invited to enter the virtual drop-in space where a Careers Advisor will invite them in to a Teams consult for a short 15 minute interview to assist with all manner of queries. It’s my day for that too, and so another hour passes by quickly.
After Lunch:
I’ve been contacted by a staff member from International, who calls for urgent assistance for a Nursing student who has lost his part-time job, has had to move suddenly and has a job interview the following day in the hospitality department of one of our largest hospitals. My assistance is provided by way of a phone call as the student is travelling on a train to his temporary ‘digs’. He has attended our workshops before, so knows what to do. As the whistle sounds at each station, I put him through his paces, reminding him of the skills that he has developed in successive hospital placements and how he is to tackle the difficult questions at interview. (The post-script to that story: He got the job. A happy outcome for sure.)
Late Afternoon:
I am required to attend a briefing session with the Physiotherapy Department regarding the upcoming VIVA Mock Interviews for final year Physio students. My Interviewing Partner is a Senior Physio from The Emergency Department of one of our leading hospitals. We will interview 13 students in a day. We are wanting to prepare them for their real-life interviews that will be occurring in a matter of months. As expected it’s a Zoom affair this year, so we work out the technicalities of the exercise and finalise the list of interview questions.
End of Day:
It’s time to check the emails one last time and the on-line review space to see if any further questions have come in from students that I must pick up. Before I leave, I will send an invitation to one of my colleagues in the Education faculty to schedule a meeting in coming days regarding an upcoming workshop for final year students on Managing Their Career post-graduation. It’s not to take place until later in the semester, but the planning is to be done now. I confer with Martin, my Brisbane based colleague, on his day. He’s been busy too, working on national projects including contributing to Speech Pathology professional interview assessments, preparing career module content and organising an upcoming collaborative careers event with the University of Southern Queensland.
Reflection:
And there ends another day: Exciting? Yes. Challenging? At times. Dull? Never. Rewarding? There is nothing more rewarding than helping students succeed as they move into their chosen fields. Thank you for the chance to serve you and best of luck for the rest of the year.
Julie Duffy - Careers Advisor, Brisbane (McAuley) Campus
