ProGrad Melbourne

Playing the Name Game

One of the worst feelings in life, apart from tripping over in public and wondering how many people saw you, is forgetting someone’s name when you know you were just told it.

In the world of first impressions when you are trying to assert yourself as a “real professional”, feeling yourself stammer and avoiding calling someone by their first name is tres awkward not to mention obvious.

The situation goes from bad to worse when you join a new organization and meet a hundred different people from a hundred departments and can’t remember the name of your boss over the sandwich guy.

Forbes (the fancy business people) have some great hints for remembering names in a corporate setting and these simple tricks  may go a long way in the campaign against being the awkward new person who has to call everyone “mate”.

1^st- Repeat the name. As soon as you hear it say it in your head and try to say it out loud again in a sentence as soon as possible.

2^nd- Use word play or word association. Think of a mnemonic device or alliteration to go along with the name so you can associate something with them to help you remember in the future.

3^rd- Make up a nickname. Try to keep this in your back pocket as a last resort and if you must do this, please make it something plausible. Don’t call anyone Slagathor.

For help getting graduate interviews and more information on how to ace them, contact ProGrad’s Graduate Management Team on 02 8235 8300 or email us at info@prograd.com.au

The Bear Necessities

It’s something drilled into us usually around the time we get our pen license, if not by our teachers then probably by our dads- “failing to plan is planning to fail”. The biggest problem with this annoying advice is that it’s true.
But planning isn’t always a terrible killjoy. Bear Grylls, perhaps the most prepared person in the world, always gets what he sets out for so perhaps it might be worth it despite the extra effort?
Gen Y’s are notorious non-planners. As a graduate you send your CV out into cyber space and you have roughly planned that this will reel in a few interviews but the planning must go further. If a company does call then you need to be prepared to answer. If you are by chance prepared and able to ace a phone interview or impress them enough to get you a ‘face to face’, this is the time to shine.
But to clear up a common misconception- getting to the interview stage does not mean you are guaranteed the job. Yes your chances have increased significantly but again, preparation might be the difference between “welcome to our company” and “thanks but no thanks”.

So how should you prepare for an interview?  The basic minimum or bare necessities include:

• Researching the company- know them before you meet them
• Preparing your own questions to ask- at least 20, even if you don’t use them all
• Tailoring your resume- to the role you are going for
• Preparing yourself physically- your outfit, getting there, all that mum stuff..
• Preparing yourself mentally- being confident and enthusiastic

Failing to prepare for an interview, no matter how impressive you are “off the cuff” will almost always result in failure. If you like the job, even if you’re not sure, if you think it sounds terrible, prepare for the interview because you never know what you might discover.
For graduate job opportunities or tips on how to impress at an interview, contact ProGrad’s Graduate Management Team on 02 8235 8300 or alternatively email info@prograd.com.au

Top 5 Reasons to Find a Job Soon After You Graduate:

Top 5 Reasons to Find a Job Soon After You Graduate:

1)      You spent 3 or 4 years getting this degree, you may as well put to use:  Unless you got an amazing scholarship, a university degree is not cheap to come by, and if you have a HECS debt, then the sooner you jump into a job the sooner you can start paying that bad boy off. It makes sense then that you go out into the world and begin to use the qualification you have worked so hard for!

2)      You can put to bed the ebb and flow of casual/part time work and get some stability: One undeniably reliable aspect of full time work is that it is, full time. Having fixed days, regular working hours and a regular schedule not only means you can better plan your time but you know you won’t have those hectic over the top weeks followed by crazy dry spells that wreak havoc with your social life. Working full time means your weekends are your own and best of all, your pay cheque is regular too, which leads me to my next point…

3)      A decent income: The thing with having a degree is that it usually entitles you to a higher potential income. When you start your career in the corporate sector you can bet you will be doing better than you were your retail salary or that unpaid internship. Whether its travel, a car or even a house,

4)      New friends: When you start a graduate job you not only begin the invaluable process of networking, making the all important connections to aid your career and progression but you also get to make new friends. If you are lucky enough to work in a team or group setting you will inevitably befriend and end up enjoying the time spent with a new group people.

5)      Greater exposure to YouTube classics: Anyone who works in an office has at some stage received an email or link with some entertaining subject matter that helps break up the day. The best YouTube referrals inevitably come from co-workers so you can either spend your time alone on the coach laughing at your laptop or in the office laughing alongside the rest of the team (during a lunch break of course..)

Here are some of our favourites, conveniently edited into a 4 minute package:

If you are a graduate after a career, contact ProGrad’s Graduate Management Team on 02 8235 8300 or alternatively email info@prograd.com.au and let us help you take the first steps to your new career.

Degrees of Success

When you complete your degree, you come out of the comfortable, familiar university environment to face “the real world”. The big scary race to find a graduate job begins often shrouded in mystery and doubt as you leave the security of your campus to step into the unknown.  With all the rumors of the economic downturn, the need for previous experience and the lack of roles available for graduates, where can you turn? What kind of role is going to be available? Does a 9-5, paying job exist for a graduate?

Maybe you should continue to study; you know, put off the inevitable for a little longer and come out with an even shinier award, maybe Honours, Masters or even a PhD?  The uni lifestyle served you well, and you know what you are doing in that world. Then again, study was kind of annoying, and it would be nice to earn some real money for a change..

It’s an argument older than the students who debate it, do you roll the dice and take a risk moving forward on the job board or do you skip your turn and wait for a better hand sticking it out at uni?

While there are many professions better accessed by high level qualifications, (we all know there’s no bachelor of brain surgery) there are many industries that don’t require a thermometer of degrees to get an entry level position. In industries including Media, Advertising, Publishing, IT, FMCG’s, Telecommunications and Events, high qualifications don’t automatically mean a better chance of landing a job. If you are looking to launch your career in the sales and marketing department a bachelor degree is more than acceptable to get you a foot in the door (and a healthy salary on the side).

If you have recently completed a degree and aren’t sure where your qualifications can take you in the business world, contact ProGrad’s graduate management team on 02 8235 8300 or email info@prograd.com.au

What we can all learn from Kanye and GaGa…

Kanye West and Lady GaGa. Apart from being musical superstars, they don’t have a huge amount in common. Something they do share is their unbridled self confidence – which, coupled with their ceaseless self promotion, undoubtedly made them the successes they are today.

Love him or loathe him, it cannot be denied that Kanye is one of the most confident men on the planet. He once called for a revised edition of the bible, because he felt he should be a character in it. Way back in 2002, Yeezy met Oprah at a chance meeting after she took an interest in his car. After they chatted about his wheels, cocky confident Kanye promised the media queen that he would one day appear on her show. The rapper grew up not far from Winfrey’s Chicago, Illinois TV studio and would often eat at a restaurant across the street, so he could dream about an appearance. He added, “I’d come over and just look at the studio and go, ‘One day I’ll be inside that studio.’”

Sure enough, he appeared on her show just three years later. Winfrey remembered the 2002 meeting: “People say that to me all the time – they say, ‘Hey Oprah, I just wrote a book,’ or ‘I’m a singer,’ but you’re the first person who ever made that true.”

It may feel like Lady GaGa has been around for decades, but it is only since 2008 she released her first single. She is officially the most followed person on twitter, the first person to ever break the eight-million-followers milestone, and also leads the Facebook race with a whopping 28,347,356 likes at the time of writing this article.

Although many people believe that Lady Gaga’s rise to fame is an overnight success, it has taken her years to become the absolute pop phenomenon of the new decade. In her high school days, GaGa was made fun of by her classmates. She left her family, went to live at a cheap apartment and wrote music until she would convince an agent to listen. Her rise to the top can be attributed to her complete self belief.  She claims Madonna is her fan and she really believes it.

Both Kanye and Lady GaGa knew what they wanted, worked incredibly hard, and let nothing stop them from reaching their goals.
So how can this help you get the job of your dreams?

Well, it isn’t recommended to wear a dress made of meat to an interview, or interrupt during the interview and say “Yo interviewer, I’m really happy for you, I’ma Let you finish, but I am the best graduate of all time!”. But having the self belief and knowing that you are the right person for the job WILL get you the job of your dreams!

For information on how ProGrad can help you get that all important interview, take a look at the website www.prograd.com.au, contact one of our friendly team on 02 8235 8325, or email ellen.giebels@prograd.com.au

Dear ProGrad.

Help I’m a recent graduate, I have studied my butt off (mostly) for the last few years to get the all important degree, and now, I have the piece of paper but don’t know what to do with it? What’s more, there are approximately tens of thousands of me graduating every year. I don’t really feel as unique as I used to. I know my mum thinks I’m special, but will an employer? Everywhere seems to want 3-5 years experience, does my 3 months of interning count? Should I have done honors? Why are cufflinks so fiddly?

At ProGrad we are all too familiar with the struggles graduates experience when trying to make that important break from student to worker.

ProGrad are a graduate placement and training company who specialize in placing graduates into roles within the Business to Business Sales category. This is a broad term that can cover a variety of different types of roles in almost any industry.

We place graduates with little or no experience into permanent full times roles with small, medium and large organizations in a range of industries, putting you on track for a successful career, not just a job. How does it work? After successfully completing our assessment process and showing us that you are an eager graduate who is looking to get into the type of roles we have on offer, we help you through the interview process and then provide you with a year’s worth of training (all paid for by your employer) in order to ensure that you not only know what you’re doing, but are able to do it well!

The graduate battle can be a hard one, but we are here to help! If you are a recent graduate wanting to get the kick start you need for a successful business career, contact ProGrad’s Graduate Management team, send us an email at info@prograd.com.au or give us a call on  02 8235 8351.

update_me@embarrassing.email.com

Most recent university graduates got their first taste of email in the early 2000’s. When spending all night on MSN and ICQ, a killer email address was a must have and being cool meant that it usually contained some reference to your preferred sub-culture and a combination of numbers- the more risqué the better.

But email has long since become more than a novelty means of contacting your friends; it is an important and frequently relied upon means of communication in today’s world. So while an email address still hooks us up with Facebook and Twitter it is also important in a professional sense.

Your email can often be the first introduction or point of contact with someone, especially when job hunting so those few shorts characters before @something.com may be saying more than you want them to.

If you still have your embarrassing surfychick88 or punkmunkey69 up and running, it may be time to consider updating?

Creating a new account, specifically for work or professional purposes is often a wise choice, and can save embarrassment and hassle when trying to communicate.

Usually working with your name or initials can be a simple and straightforward approach.  Avoiding numbers or excessive underscores or additional characters can ensure it is easy to read and give. And trying to use a “grown up” host is also wise; usually something like Gmail, Yahoo or Live etc rather than your student email or a fan site may help in coming across as more professional.

For more hints and tips on how to approach the professional world or help with your graduate job hunt, contact ProGrad’s Graduate Management team on 02 8235 8300 or alternatively email us at info@prograd.com.au