Engineer your Career

Engineer your career

SydneyTalent partnership helps students survive the GFC (and its fall out!)

By Amy Fox,

SydneyTalent student employee and undergraduate law student

In 2009, final year engineering student found themselves on the wrong end of the global financial crisis.  To complete their degree, the students needed a 12-week work placement but with world markets collapsing and employers cutting costs wherever they could, the employment market for engineering graduates dried up.

“There was no doubt that the global financial crisis had – and continues to have – a profound impact on engineering graduates,” said the Executive Officer Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Foundation at the University of Sydney, Skender Bregu.

Faced with a raft of students unable to graduate, the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies called on SydneyTalent to help them develop an innovative solution.

That solution was Alternative to Work Experience, which became a component of ENGG4000 Practical Experience. The course included workshops, visits to industry and short-term project placements that allowed students to meet the professional accreditation requirements needed to graduate.

SydneyTalent also delivered five workshops focusing on soft skills. Some of these included project management, general managerial skills and problem solving. The students quickly realised that these soft skills were a hidden key to acquiring graduate positions.

 “It’s almost irrelevant what stream [of engineering studies] you choose - it’s the project skills, the management skills and problem solving skills that actually help you get jobs, rather than what you actually technically know,” said final year mechatronics student Anthony

Some students said they would have liked to take the WorkReady Essentials course earlier in their degree because it gave them a keen insight into the demands of project management.

The soft skills component became vital during work placements and industry visits. They made students more confident talking to employers, helped them develop presentation skills, improved their networking and even set in place planned approaches that allowed jobs to be finished professionally and on time without undue stress.

The increased contact with the industry through site visits and placements organised by SydneyTalent was also of real practical value to the students.

“They gave us a much better idea of what we want to do at the end of the course,” said Peter, who transferred from a science degree to specialise in mechatronics.

In more recent times there have been signs that as the GFC passes, the engineering industry is opening back up to students.

“Some companies are marketing their graduate programs earlier but there is still a sense that there is some distance to go before graduate hiring patterns return to normal,” said Mr Bregu.

For that reason the Alternative to Work Experience Course will be a part of the Engineering degree for the foreseeable future.

Mr Bregu said that the course was an excellent option for students but it didn’t replace industry experience when it came to applying for graduate positions. That is why it is vital to start thinking about skill development early and seeking links with the industry through programs such as SydneyTalent.

To find out more about SydneyTalent’s WorkReady Workshops program go to http://www.sydneytalent.com.au/page/workready_workshops1.html