Looking for Work

Interesting bit of information I learned after an interview with a recruitment agency (yes, I've been sending out my resume - CV as they prefer to call it here). Apparently, there are graduates out there looking for work who have never done any work experience. Work experience here is what we call On-the-Job-Training in the Philippines. This is where you work for a company for free for a set time. Back in the Philippines, most OJTs were more of the making coffee, organising files and running errands kind of things. It was more observation that actual work being done. If your supervisor was the mentoring kind, you'd be invited to meetings and maybe even given an actual task / project to work on. 

Here, work experience require more from the students. I've done quality control for one designer, sewing garments for a factory owner, preparing spreadsheets and calculating gross margins and other financial data for a retail company and sat on video conferences and meetings / presentations for another company. My classmates did patterns, stitching, and sewing for designers. 

Sewing a garment 

In RMIT, students of the Visual Merchandising course, according to the lecturer we met in our class excursion, are required to do 70 hours (I think) of work experience. It could be with just one company / person or with a number of companies as long as they complete the 70 hours required. In addition, the school has partnered with some companies and have given briefs to the students to work on. 

RMIT Students' Visual Window for Ray's Outdoors

The objective is not only to give an idea of how the "real world" operates, but also to allow students to put theory into reality. Another objective is for students to build their networks. Now, I hate networking. I don't like the idea of going to places and exchanging business cards or pretend to be interested to obtain other people's business cards. But someone told me that networking doesn't have to be that way. Networking can simply be knowing the employees in the place you're having your work experience, knowing what they do, learning from them and keeping in contact with them. 

Eventually, you might even end up being genuine friends with them as opposed to being user-friendly. 

Doing work experience also gives you first dibs on vacant positions in the company. If you were good at what you did and you had good rapport with people, there's no reason the company wouldn't consider you unless you had no permission to work in the country, then that's different (although a company might consider sponsoring you under a certain type of visa but I'm not sure if that still works what with the visa changes they've been doing recently at the immigration department).

So, go forth and do work experience! It could be fun. It could be painful. It could be interesting. But you'll learn a lot.

At Holeproof

Started my work experience at Holeproof last Monday, they're a division of Pacific Brands, which owns other brands in Australia such as Bonds, Sheridan, Jockey, Rio, etc.

The people there, specifically the ones in the Design and Product Development, are great. They're friendly and they don't mind me pestering them with questions even though they have a deadline to meet. Oops.

School Over for the Year!

Yey!

Yesterday was the last of my classes. I handed in my cocktail hat

view from the side

view from the top

I wanted it to look like a flower but I think it looks more like a cake. =) Goes to show how much I love pastries. 

***

And tonight, I start working for Myer. I'm going to be helping out by moving things. If you've been to the new Myer Melbourne store, you would have seen how amazing it is but there are still lots of things being done. And lots of people getting lost. Hopefully, with the number of people they've hired, things will move faster.

Everything is scheduled to be finished by March, if it gets done faster, it would be better for everyone. 

Ta-ta!

Myer Update

So...as I mentioned in a previous post, I got a call from Myer saying I got in. That was a month ago. Last week, I received an email from Myer saying to log on with a username and password for the orientation. Since I haven't received any of that, I decided to call them up and that's were a series of interesting events happened.

First off, I was told that my application was still under consideration for another store I didn't apply for. Therefore, I shouldn't have received that email and was told to disregard it. Ten minutes or so after the call, I received an email thanking for applying and that they had filled up the vacancies. At this point, I was at war with myself, trying to decide what to do. Note, this was in the middle of finishing my business plan. After some pushing from V, I decided to email them the next day. And received a call from the original HR guy who told me somebody must have pushed the wrong button because I was in and I was supposed to get that email. After that call, I received an email, this time welcoming me to Myer.

But there's still the orientation which starts this Wednesday and I still don't have my log on details. My email this morning hasn't received any reply. I'm hoping I would get the details tomorrow.

*UPDATE: A second after uploading this post, I received an email from Myer with my log on details. Yey!

***

Last Friday was the last day of Fashion Business. That was another experience in itself.

After two hours sleep, I woke up and got ready for school. I only needed to print out my 100+ business plan and have it bound. I left early and arrived in the city about a quarter to 9 in the morning. I got on the 86 tram which had only a few passengers on. The tram was traveling without incident when it reached Parliament House and got stuck there. Apparently, the 96 tram in front stopped and couldn't move. The promised 5 minutes of waiting promptly turned into 15 minutes. As I wasn't in a hurry, I waited which was a stupid mistake.

The tram was then told to go back to the city and take the La Trobe route. We were assured we were still going to Bondoora so just stayed put. But when we reached Southern Cross, we were told, the tram wasn't going to move any further and we were to walk to La Trobe St and catch the tram from there. By that time, it was already 9.30 in the morning. I, along with the rest of the passengers, walked (me in my high heels - I was glad they were comfortable) to La Trobe but I couldn't see any tram in sight.

So I decided on a cab, which promptly got stuck in traffic. The cab driver was sympathetic to my plight and gave me candy. (That was really sweet of him). He did manage to avoid the worst traffic and we arrived at the printing place. Which was closed. (Aaaargh)

The cab driver was still there and seeing that it was closed offered to drive me to the next printing place which was at Cambridge St. But after going around the block, I saw Snap Printing. I got out while the cab driver promised to wait in case they couldn't do the binding. Happily enough, they were able to though they had to do it in two due to the bulk. I waved to the cabbie thanks and waited for my assignment to be bound.

After it was done, I was debating whether to get another cab to school but saw the tram. I wasn't sure whether I could catch it but there was traffic and the tram doors were open. Yey, for nice drivers.

The presentation went well and everybody did great although not everyone came and presented, which was a pity.

I wish I could say the day ended well, but a a case of a restaurant staff miscounting the money and overcharging a friend's credit card ended the night on a sour note. I forgot the name of the restaurant but it's the one on Smith St, beside Copacabana. The food was small portioned and good but the staff attitude were atrocious. Avoid at all cost!