Interns in Australia

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rantalot

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Jan 18, 2009, 8:17:36 PM1/18/09
to Silicon Beach Australia
Has anyone had any experience in using Interns in their business in
Australia?

SportsPassion is looking at establishing a few positions as
internships and are wondering whether the likely source for filling
the roles will be Uni students in Australia or Uni students who are
travelling to Australia and can work as interns (that is, their visas
permit that).

Any thoughts/guidance/feedback would be welcome.

thx
Rob

Geoff McQueen - Hiive Systems

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Jan 18, 2009, 8:19:11 PM1/18/09
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We've found it to be excellent. We've had 2x interns who've gone on to become awesome staff. We're helped because our main feeder campus and degree require students to undertake 2x 8 week (part time) work experience placements in order to graduate.

I've always been massively impressed with the quality of the students we've gotten...

Kevin Littlejohn

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Jan 18, 2009, 8:27:21 PM1/18/09
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We've only done this once so far - from Swinburne here in Victoria -
and the student in question was so good, we hired him (and helped him
get his residency).

The Universities seem very keen to make these things work - they gave
us a good student, followed up well to make sure everything was
working, and I'd without a question do it again (intend to as soon as
we have more desk space ;)

As long as you've got some structure in place to help train them up
while they're with you, and/or some tasks that can be fairly easily
segmented off (we used software testing as the starter task, the
person in question quickly expanded on the initial requirements to
enhance our automated test suites), then you should be fine. It's a
great way to filter for promising potential employees.

Talk to your nearest University - our experience has been they most of
them have some sort of program for this sort of thing, and they want
to make sure it works well for industry - I suspect it plays well with
attracting students if they can demonstrate strong industry relevance
in these sorts of things - so they're keen to make sure it's all good.

KevinL
---
Kevin Littlejohn
Obsidian Consulting Group
ph (AU): +613 9355 7844 (ext 2001)
ph (UK): +44 20 8816 7317
fax: +613 9350 4097

Mark Neely

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Jan 19, 2009, 1:41:24 AM1/19/09
to silicon-bea...@googlegroups.com, Davidson, Bill
Rob,

I reckon TAFE will be your best bet...lots of qualified grads who are
looking for a leg up into a role.

I've cc'd Bill Davidson who is doing some work within the TAFE system to
establish these kinds of initiatives - he can speak to some of the
opportunities available.

Regards,

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: silicon-bea...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:silicon-bea...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of rantalot
Sent: Monday, 19 January 2009 12:18 PM
To: Silicon Beach Australia
Subject: [SiliconBeach] Interns in Australia


gradconnection

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Jan 19, 2009, 3:25:05 PM1/19/09
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Hi Rob,

My company GradConnection, specialises in exactly this. We are launching a web application in March this year called the Gradaute Program Wizard which intelligently tells grads which opportunities are most relevant to them based on the criteria that they enter. So if you were after a graduate/intern who programmed Ruby, we would tailor our question set to make sure you opportunity gets infront of relevant grads and students.

We have had major sign ups now from a number of government departments and are a couple of large corporates.

In our efforts to jump the chasm, we would like to get a couple of smaller companies on-board to profile the merits of our webapp and would happy to offer this to you since you are a member of silicon beach.

If you are interested then lets catch up for a coffee. In Sydney any time, or if you are in Melbourne we will be down their again from Feb 9.

Warm regards,

Mike
http://www.gradconnection.com.au
--
Mike Casey
Director

Level 5, 95
Pitt Street
Sydney
New South Wales
2000

P: +61 2 8005 0266
M: +61 4 4997 6059

Michael Harries

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Jan 19, 2009, 5:22:10 PM1/19/09
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Great business idea.

We've had good success with interns from UTS at Citrix. However we are placing them in our test group so generalist skills are appropriate. For specialized skills a service like GradConnection sounds great -- good luck with it.

Cheers,
Michael
--
__
Michael Harries

Dale Hurley

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Jan 19, 2009, 5:26:27 PM1/19/09
to silicon-beach-australia
Hi
 
I did an internship with Ernst & Young and it was the best experience. Ernst & Young loved and hired me after it getting me my first marketing job. It works well for both parties, the intern get experience and a bit of pay, and the company gets to try out a potential employee for cheap and if it doesn't work out it is easy to get rid of them.
 
Dale




Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 09:22:10 +1100
Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: Interns in Australia
From: michael...@gmail.com
To: silicon-bea...@googlegroups.com

Elias Bizannes

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Jan 19, 2009, 6:08:57 PM1/19/09
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I applied to several firms for a summer vacation stint - which lasts for six weeks. It's a competitive process as these programs are well established for traditional industries (like financial services) but students are *dying* to get it. So it's worth following this model for our own evolving Internet industries.

Getting that first kick-start in your career is one of the hardest things - because you don't have contacts, you don't have work experience, you don't have industry experience, you don't have anything other than enthusiasm. It's taken for granted how things like that matter,

As for the experience itself, I loved it and think it's a great thing for all parties involved. I consider them drawn out interviews - you get six weeks for employee and employer to work out if this fits.

--
Elias Bizannes
http://liako.biz

glen

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Jan 19, 2009, 7:07:23 PM1/19/09
to silicon-bea...@googlegroups.com

Interesting to hear people's thoughts on this, actually. When I was at Uni, in my final year of undergrad, there were internships available as an alternative to the big group project, but they sounded quite poorly thought-through. It was minimum 2 days/week, unpaid, and actually increased the number of project deliverables to the university in terms of plans, specifications, etc.

I thought it could have been good experience but it seemed impossible for me to take part at the time. Glad that some people out there are doing it usefully, though.

Cheers,
-glen.
--
Glen Maddern
0423 118 405

brentoe

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Jan 21, 2009, 3:58:57 PM1/21/09
to Silicon Beach Australia
I'm currently an intern at IBM and I love it. I work in the test team
in a development lab and it's great.

I have learned as much here in 18 months as I have in 3 years of uni.
The average age of our lab is quite young, probably largely because we
currently have 5-7 interns on in test and dev with a few more coming
in the next week or two as well as 6 or 7 graduates. There are 3 or 4
developers that started as interns that are now some of the most
valuable developers to the team and are moving their way up the ladder
to be lead developers for some projects. There are also some interns
who have progressed to other divisions within the company from here.

I am lucky that where I am intern culture is well established. Working
hours are very flexible around uni and other commitments, and all the
managers are very supportive. During session I am able to work from
home 1 or 2 days a week to attend classes in the morning/afternoon and
come exam time it isn't a problem to take 2-3 weeks off to study and
complete those.

In saying that, the interns don't get a free ride - when the chips are
down, we are expected to work just as hard as everyone else to make
sure what needs to be done, is done. I think we certainly bring
something new and innovative to the team that sometimes can be missed
by older members that have been doing things one way for a long time.

I have switched to part time at uni for my last 3 years and while it
will be a bit longer until I graduate, I am exponentially more
employable as a grad with that experience and there is every chance
that where I am now will offer to keep me on as a grad.

That's my $0.02 worth - hope it's helpful.

Cheers,
Brendo

On Jan 20, 11:07 am, glen <gle...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Interesting to hear people's thoughts on this, actually. When I was at Uni,
> in my final year of undergrad, there were internships available as an
> alternative to the big group project, but they sounded quite poorly
> thought-through. It was minimum 2 days/week, unpaid, and actually increased
> the number of project deliverables to the university in terms of plans,
> specifications, etc.
> I thought it could have been good experience but it seemed impossible for me
> to take part at the time. Glad that some people out there are doing it
> usefully, though.
>
> Cheers,
> -glen.
>
> On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 9:08 AM, Elias Bizannes <elias.bizan...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
> > I applied to several firms for a summer vacation stint - which lasts for
> > six weeks. It's a competitive process as these programs are well established
> > for traditional industries (like financial services) but students are
> > *dying* to get it. So it's worth following this model for our own evolving
> > Internet industries.
>
> > Getting that first kick-start in your career is one of the hardest things -
> > because you don't have contacts, you don't have work experience, you don't
> > have industry experience, you don't have anything other than enthusiasm.
> > It's taken for granted how things like that matter,
>
> > As for the experience itself, I loved it and think it's a great thing for
> > all parties involved. I consider them drawn out interviews - you get six
> > weeks for employee and employer to work out if this fits.
>
> > On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 9:26 AM, Dale Hurley <dale-hur...@hotmail.com>wrote:
>
> >>  Hi
>
> >> I did an internship with Ernst & Young and it was the best experience.
> >> Ernst & Young loved and hired me after it getting me my first marketing job.
> >> It works well for both parties, the intern get experience and a bit of pay,
> >> and the company gets to try out a potential employee for cheap and if it
> >> doesn't work out it is easy to get rid of them.
>
> >> Dale
>
> >> ------------------------------
>
> >> Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2009 09:22:10 +1100
> >> Subject: [SiliconBeach] Re: Interns in Australia
> >> From: michaelharr...@gmail.com
> >> To: silicon-bea...@googlegroups.com
>
> >> Great business idea.
>
> >> We've had good success with interns from UTS at Citrix. However we are
> >> placing them in our test group so generalist skills are appropriate. For
> >> specialized skills a service like GradConnection sounds great -- good luck
> >> with it.
>
> >> Cheers,
> >> Michael
>
> >> On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 7:25 AM, gradconnection <gradconnect...@gmail.com
> >> *Director*
>
> >> Level 5, 95
> >> Pitt Street
> >> Sydney
> >> New South Wales
> >> 2000
>
> >> P: +61 2 8005 0266
> >> M: +61 4 4997 6059
>
> >> --
> >> __
> >> Michael Harries
>
> > --
> > Elias Bizannes
> >http://liako.biz
>
> --
> Glen Maddern
> 0423 118 405
>
>  logo.gif
> 9KViewDownload

brentoe

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Jan 21, 2009, 4:01:31 PM1/21/09
to Silicon Beach Australia
Also - meant to add this - the place I initially got my internship
through:

http://www.acsfoundation.com.au/index.cfm?action=scholarships&temID=currentscholar

Cheers,
Brendo
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