Young IPWEA

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  • 1.  EA Sydney Career Expo

    Posted 05-02-2015 14:41
    Afternoon everyone,

    Coming up on 4 March this year, the Sydney Division of Engineers Australia is holding a Careers Exhibition in Sydney for final and penultimate year engineering students from all the major Sydney unis (NSW, Sydney, UTS, UWS, Wollongong and maybe Newcastle?). In previous years they have attracted around 800 students over the afternoon, giving those that have exhibited a pretty good exposure to a large raft of soon-to-be grads.

    This year, driven by YIPWEA, the NSW Division have registered as an exhibitor and the staff are looking for support from YIPWEA on the day. I'm hoping to get there for it, but it would be fantastic if we could get a representative group (two, three or maybe four at a stretch) up there to support the staff on the day.

    From previous experience it can be a very worthwhile day, and I encourage you all to get involved and consider it.

    If you're interested, please get in touch with me and we can talk from there.

    Cheers,
    Will

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    William Barton
    Director Engineering Services
    Junee Shire Council
    JUNEE NSW
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  • 2.  RE: EA Sydney Career Expo

    Posted 04-03-2015 19:53
    Hi Will,

    It would be great to hear how this event goes, some feedback for other Divisions looking to do similar would be useful. To any students who attended, your input is also welcome!

    In SA, Young IPWEA attended the University of South Australia Orientation Day for Engineering (and other) students, holding a stand for students to learn about who IPWEA is and how they can get involved, including Student Membership and ongoing graduate opportunities.

    TAFE SA approached young IWPEA SA and we will be presenting to students next Thursday, and the following week we will be attending the Adelaide University Careers Expo 2015.

    It's great to see things happening in this space in Sydney/NSW and it would be great to see other divisions get ideas of how they too can be involved.

    Kind regards,

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    Megan Bonehill
    District Council of Mount Barker
    MOUNT BARKER SAau
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  • 3.  RE: EA Sydney Career Expo

    Posted 09-03-2015 12:51
    G'day Megan,

    It was certainly eye-opening; it appears the job market for graduates has changed quite a bit since I was there!

    Positives for the day were the number of students we had contact with - I'd estimate 100-150 - and that with an actual engineer in attendance we could provide a bit more than the "this is us, here's the form to fill out". It would have been terrific to have another couple of engineers along, but unfortunately, as we've all experienced, work commitments prevented a number from attending.

    It was difficult to get the purpose of IPWEA across in such a short, noisy environment. But once they understood what we were about they were generally pretty keen on joining (and students love free stuff!) and saw membership and involvement as a way to kick start their career networking.

    If we do this one again, or for any others, there's a few things I'd like to have in the chamber ready to fire beforehand:
    1. Get more young professionals involved and there on the day. As I said, I understand how hard it can be with work commitments, but nonetheless I'll still be trying. The students lapped up the opportunity to discuss their approach to their careers with a young, professional engineer, but there was only one which limited the contact.
    2. Something I wouldn't mind using as a project for YIPWEA NSW is to get some sort of trainee/cadet/intern register together from public works employers so that we have something more to offer the students.
    3. Free stuff. Rulers, stubby holders, USBs just anything with our branding on it and free.
    4. Membership sign-up on the spot. This has to be quick and it has to be easy. Two or three fields max, ready to go on an iPad or similar. There was a lot of interest, but how that interest wanes is an unknown.

    That's all that comes to mind for now. If anything else makes its way through the grey matter I'll throw it up here.

    Cheers,
    Will

    [IPWEA CEO: Hi Will, just to let you know that we are working on an addition to our website that will allow free student membership sign-up (so could be done on an iPad). Presently the online "join" process is limited to paid memberships. We are also working on implementing an "Intern Connect" application to connect university students and others to prospective employers for internships. Good work on taking up the challenge of attending the Careers Expo! Regards, Chris Champion.]

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    Will Barton
    Director Engineering Services
    Junee Shire Council
    JUNEE NSW
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