The win-win work placement

At the start of this year I had 2 courses left to complete my university degree at QUT. I chose to enroll in the Transitions Program to gain my final credit through work experience. I thought it would be a good chance to gain some industry experience and contacts and have a lecture free semester. I saw it as a win-win opportunity.

It started out slowly. Our first task set by the university was to write a CV and Cover Letter for a placement application. This had to be submitted to a lecturer and altered according to his feedback, so that I was 3 weeks into the semester before I had even applied for the position at Bluewire Media.

I went through the standard job application process, which consists of a questionnaire and exam, an Interview with Toby and Adam and ‘Running the Gauntlet.’ None of this was actually as scary as it had initially sounded.

So after my application was approved I started my work placement. It was at this point that I realised how little I had learned at uni. Feeling a little out of my depth, I took a ‘learn while doing’ approach which seemed to work well. I’m still quite amazed at how rapidly I was able pick things up simply because I was in a good learning environment.

When it got to the end of my placement, I felt that I had a good idea of how the industry works, gained lots of specific technical skills, some industry contacts, a CV entry and a good review. On top of this Adam and Toby actually offered me a full-time contract position at Bluewire.

I made a successful transition from study to work – win.

Bluewire Media was able to trial me for free for five weeks before hiring me – win.

I really think that doing work experience was the best possible way to finish my degree and it definitely turned out to be the win-win situation that I had hoped for.

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