Volume 28 Issue 35 08 Nov 2019 10 Heshvan 5780

Careers

Claire Pech – Careers Advisor

I attended the annual Careers Advisor Conference in NSW last week. Advisors in NSW and ACT meet to learn and listen to what is new on the careers landscape. I attended a variety of conferences that were interesting and that affect students going out into the workforce.

 

A full list of my notes (annotated) can be found here. My main take-away points from the day were:

Top 10 skills employers are now looking for:

  1. Communication/listening/understanding
  2. Digital literacy
  3. Customer focus
  4. Organisational skills
  5. Time management
  6. Team work/collaboration
  7. Problem Solving
  8. Positive disposition

Please notice (students!) that none of these say top academics, being a genius, having a high ATAR, coming 1st at anything… These are the skills that are needed!

The data/stats show that anyone who is trained in ONE job, acquire the skills that then allow them to work in another 13 JOBS. This is a vital statistic. Working in one area (any area) then accelerates their ability to get another job.

Average transition time from leaving education to full-time work is now 2.6 years compared to one year in 1986.

The four factors that affect this are:

  1. Education
  2. Being able to undertake work experience
  3. Finding employment in a growing sector
  4. An optimistic mindset.

Workshop – Comparing Courses

I also went to a great course on comparing courses against each other (something that all students finishing school need if they are not going straight to work).

www.courseseeker.edu.au/ This allows you to fine tune your course searches by putting in what state, what area, what ATAR you are looking at – it is much more specific.

www.compared.edu.au/ Once you have your courses from the above site, you can then go to this and see what data students have voted with about student satisfaction rates (some can be quite surprising). This is great for students who feel the ONLY place to study Engineering/Psychology/Course choice etc is at ____________. These stats may refute your subjective views.

Next year we are hoping to launch a new social media careers page where this information can be more readily available and easily accessed so we are keen to change this forum in the next few months. Watch this space!