GCCA | Graduate Careers Council of Australia

The innovative new software tool, CEQuery, was officially launched and released to the higher education sector on Tuesday 23rd March, 2004. Professor Dennis Gibson, Chancellor of RMIT, and Chair of the CEQuery Steering Committee, performed the launch at an event hosted by the University of Technology, Sydney, and attended by over forty representatives from the higher education sector, the Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) and other interested personnel.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is an international body pursuing high sustainable economic growth and standards of living in its member countries, as well as multilateral, non-discriminatory expansion in world trade. The organisation’s activities reach into most areas of public and commercial activity, not the least of these career guidance policies, and a new review into these areas begun in 2001 has now been published under the title “Career Guidance and Public Policy: Bridging the Gap”.

The prevailing message to come from the latest NACE Spring Salary Survey, published late in the first half of 2004 in the United States, is one of cautious optimism. NACE, the National Association of Colleges and Employers, is the peak body for graduate employment in the US, conducting research into employment and salary outcomes for graduates of US universities.

GCCA Director Joanne Tyler is currently enjoying a second stint as National President of NAGCAS (the National Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services).
Currently Director of Student Career Development at Victoria University, she has been a Director of the GCCA since 1994, and chair of the gradlink Steering Committee for the last five years.

The annual Australian Association of Careers Counsellors’ conference was held from 14-16 April at the Twin Towns Resort in Coolangatta, Queensland. With an attendance of well over 300, the conference provided a wonderful opportunity to network with people interested in different aspects of career planning and development, counselling and employment.

The essential task for graduate recruiters is to attract the best and most appropriate new talent to their organisation. As an increasing number of information sources demand the attention of job-seekers, developing a targeted strategy to reach final and pre-final year students becomes vital; here the University careers service is ideally placed to help.

Over the next two editions of ergo, we will be featuring the stories of two Careers Advisers from opposite sides of the world, who swapped jobs, houses and cars for six months: Eleanor Berry from the University of Warwick, UK and Rosemary Sainty from the University of Sydney in Australia. Part One of this feature is from Eleanor, who came to Australia in mid-Semester One, 2004; Part Two from Rosemary will feature in the September edition of ergo, number 96.

The inaugural SciTech Career Forum was held on the afternoon and evening of 30 April 2004. This event, the first of its kind in Australia, was organised by the careers team at La Trobe University under the cool and unflappable guidance of Anna Heywood, and had the backing and support of most other Victorian universities.