ProGrad Case Study, Alex
October 22, 2008 by ProGrad
My name is Alex Brownlee and I moved to Sydney from New Zealand after graduating from Canterbury University. I graduated in December 2007 with a double degree in Psychology and Management. Being a recent graduate and new to Sydney I was a little unsure as to the best way to go about finding employment here so I asked around my friends living here in Sydney. One of my close friends had gone through Prograd and suggested I give this a go. I had a look on the Prograd website and decided to send my CV in.
I had previously been working in hospitality for the duration of my University studies and for the past year had been running a bar/restaurant on behalf of the owners. I wanted to take a step away from this and try something new and a bit more challenging. Within a couple of hours of sending my CV through to Prograd I was contacted by someone there and had a phone interview and was passed through to the Assessment Day. To be totally honest I was really quite nervous about the whole thing, but I had a lot of help from the staff at Prograd as to what to prepare and how to present myself.
The Assessment Day was run very well and after the first 10 minutes or so my nerves dissipated and I felt at ease. I particularly enjoyed working on the group tasks and meeting recent graduates who were all in the same situation as me. On completing the assesment day I gained a couple of interviews and set about preparing for these. The one aspect about this I loved was not having to worry about organising the interviews myself and receiving information about the job I was applying for prior to the interview. This meant I could concentrate on preparing myself and putting together my proposal for the interview also.
The idea of preparing a proposal was new to me, as previous job interviews I had gone into with little knowledge of the company and was relying mainly on the interviewer asking me questions and telling me what they were looking for. The proposal allowed me to feel more in control of the process and my boss was blown away with what I had prepared as she mentioned that she had interviewed several applicants who were a lot more experienced than myself who had not even taken the time to pick up a copy of the magazine to know what they would even be talking about.
The role I was applying for was Account manager for Healthy Food Guide’s clients in the Victorian territory. The role involves account management, creating new business opportunities and has been a challenge for someone who was new to sales. Without the valuable training Prograd provided I would hate to imagine who much longer it would have taken me to feel comfortable and confident in the role.
One of the best things about the training process for me was hearing of other grad’s experience and knowing I was not the only one who was learning a new role. I met some really nice people on the course, a few of which I have kept in contact with and it is nice to receive the odd email to hear of how they are doing and also have the support there as well. Learning the theory of sales is very different and a lot easier than putting it into practice and the training allowed me to experience both.
The best advice I could give graduates who are considering working with Prograd would be go for it. The whole process for me was easy and straight forward and took the pressure off me feeling like a small fish in a very big pond. The best part about the whole experience was there was no stress about having to weed through the various job opportunities that are out there. It made me feel as though I was in control of my situation as much as my potential employers were. It was equally focused on not only what employers were looking for, but what I wanted as well.
If you would like to speak to one of the ProGrad graduate management team, please contact us on 02 8235 8300. Alternatively, you can apply to ProGrad online by clicking here.
ProGrad have offices in both Sydney and Melbourne. For more information, please email us at info@prograd.com.au
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