Graduate Careers Australia
ergo - Number 88 September 2002
2002 NAGCAS Industry Visits
The 2002 NAGCAS Visits took place in Sydney from Wednesday 10 – Friday 12 July, with the first and third days being based at the University of Technology, Sydney and the second at Macquarie University. The program of lectures and discussion/networking time was interspersed with a number of site visits covering a wide range of interesting and sometimes unusual work environments, ranging from the Australian Stock Exchange to a prominent interactive multimedia firm in trendy Surry Hills.
Day One
After an opening address from Dr Jeff Fitzgerald, the Registrar of the University of Sydney, the program began with a panel session entitled “Career Opportunities for PhDs”. This featured a number of addresses from PhD students from a variety of backgrounds about their experiences, and was followed by expert commentary from several recruitment professionals concerning the value of PhDs in different industries. After this, Adam Bennett from recruitment company AT Kearney discussed “case interview skills”, a technique currently emerging as an important job-seeking skill for many graduates.
The afternoon featured David White from Port Jackson Partners on careers in the rapidly-growing area of management consulting, who gave the audience an overview of the current state of the industry in Australia, and then we were off to the Australian Stock Exchange. Our site visit actually led us to the main boardroom at the ASX – for probably the first and last time in most cases! Finally we rounded off the day with an address from a very driven young graduate at investment bankers JP Morgan, before retiring to network in a more casual fashion at the nearby Brooklyn Hotel.
Day Two
The second day of the Sydney Visits had “science” as its theme and was held in the leafy environs of Macquarie University in Ryde some thirty minutes out of Sydney. We launched straight into the program with an address from Dr Stuart Cordwell of the Australian Proteome Analysis Facility about “proteomics”, an area of scientific knowledge which was actually discovered and developed at Macquarie University, and subsequently adopted around the world! Following on from Rachel Freeman, who spoke about careers at global biotechnology company Gradipore, Stuart Cordwell led us on a tour of the Proteome Analysis Facility which was in an “off-limits” part of the campus and housed expensive, delicate scientific equipment.
Next up was Dr Amanda Reid from Daryl Alexander and Associates talking about recruitment in the pharmaceutical and scientific industries, who emphasised the importance of a broad range of skills beyond academic qualifications (such as sales ability). Nanotechnology has been a buzz-word for some years in scientific circles, and Carl Masens explored the development of the industry and the potential of the field to become as important to everyday life as microtechnology in the coming decades. The day was rounded off by a panel discussing another emerging careers area – environmental science.
Day Three
The last day began with an internet teleconference between Sydney and Adelaide about the new myfuture careers website, and then the group split into various special interest sessions – I found out about the inner workings of “Careerhub”, the careers information management system which has already been successfully installed in a number of institutions around the country. Continuing the theme of technology, we heard from Michael Rose from Cisco Systems, and then Rob Mallick, who provided a crash course in internet careers and stated that it was not all doom and gloom in mid-2002.
The final program item was a site visit to Massive Interactive, an interactive multimedia company which provides website and other audio-visual solutions for a wide range of large businesses and events in Australia; this was an entertaining way to finish off what had been a highly informative and eye-opening few days. I’m already looking forward to the next NAGCAS Industry Visits event!
Dugald McNaughtan
Communications Coordinator, gradlink
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