UNSW Sydney focuses on employability of international students

UNSW Sydney, Australia, at rank 45 according to QS, has a well-researched and highly successful Professional Development Program (PDP) tailored for international students to enhance their career success, according to Blair Slater, Senior Careers Consultant (International) at UNSW Careers and Employment who visited India last week.

“Employability means not just employment and getting a job, but equipping you with the skills, the knowledge and tools to be able to succeed in your career,” adds Blair.

“It is normal and expected of students not to know what they want to do. The UNSW Professional Development Program for international students is a three-day free program during which we teach international students about Australian workplace culture, about the recruitment process and prepare the student for a global career – all through many interactive sessions,” says Blair, who has featured in some Hollywood films including ‘The Truman Show’ (1998), prior to starting a career in student career development in higher education.

“We take employability very seriously,” says Blair, adding that there are students from several nations at UNSW and the PDP program helps them gain the Australian workplace culture. A focus of the PDP is to help each international student “stand out”.

The PDP stresses on networking and sharpens the communication skills of students to boost their employability, besides teaching them about writing resumes.

“We offer career advice appointments to students to help them maximize employment outcomes. We also hold an International Students Career Week in September, where we invite employers on campus, and provide current students an opportunity to meet the international alumni who have been successful and to learn from them,” says Blair.

Aayushi Pandey, an alumnus of School of Business of UNSW who has joined the UNSW representative office in New Delhi, is full of praise for the PDP.

“When I thought of a job experience UNSW gave me the opportunity with a start-up company. This introduced me to work place culture in Australia in addition to giving me valuable job experience that I put on my resume.

“In the first session we were told how important networking is, and they helped me build a network with the alumni, and also network with employers. This helped me expand my network for employability.” says Aayushi.

For her current position, she messaged UNSW hiring managers via LinkedIn and was offered a job quickly after a series of interviews.

According to Blair, international students should seriously consider studying in Australia and of the employment opportunities there. Australia has been recession free for the past 26 years. Australia’s economic success often goes unnoticed because it is not promoted as much as the UK, USA.