Graduate – account manager
When Michael Kavanagh started looking for jobs in his final year at university, he soon realised it would take more than an application and an interview to land himself a graduate position.
“The competition for journalism roles, publicity roles and media sales positions was huge, so I started trying to identify the people I knew who might be able to help me out with job opportunities,” he said.
Among those he approached was a cousin who worked in online training at the Department of Education & Training and the managing director of Noggin, an online business applications company.
“I mentioned on a couple of occasions to the managing director I was looking for some practical experience,” he said.
“He eventually had an opening for someone to do menial tasks around the office on a casual basis.
“So, during my last year, I worked a few days a week as the mail boy and doing office admin, being paid on an hourly rate. Then, in my last month of uni, they offered me a full-time job.”
A year-and-a-half later and Kavanagh is account manager for the content management systems section of Noggin, working with clients such as Woolworths and BWS.
Kavanagh explained: “I build relationships with clients and find out what their requirements from a CMS are, and pass this information on to the developers who build it.”
Flexibility and career development are the benefits of working for Noggin, Kavanagh says.
“They developed my role to suit my experience and they have also been very flexible with my hours while I do my honours in communications,” he said.
“Noggin also set up a graduate program for programmers and developers in their final year doing computer science.
“This year they are looking to take on two people to do three months in each team at Noggin content management, communication systems and enterprise CRM applications.”
Kavanagh is sure work experience is the best way a student can prepare for “real life”.
“At uni, you always know what is expected of you, but at work you have to learn a whole new skill set and working nine to five is a totally new experience,” he said.
