At the Future Work Summit this month, Ribit ran an interactive ‘How to network’ workshop for around 30 tertiary students from institutions across Melbourne to help them boost their chances of getting a meaningful job. Along with our workshop, we teamed up with the Talent Institute to share their top tips on growth hacking.
Ribit team member (and current law student) Harry Godber shared CSIRO’s Data61 and Ribit’s most recent research into professional networking and gave five valuable tips to remember when making new connections:
- Talk about your career-related experience – employers value the skills you gain in the workplace just as much as they value your academic qualifications.
- Talk about your practical skills – if you have any vocational qualifications, technical knowledge or any extra-curricular experience, employers value the extra time and effort students put in to go beyond their university qualifications. This also give you a unique edge and makes you stand out from the crowd.
- Be yourself – Employers want to see the real you. Personality and cultural fit are significant factors in employment decisions and you don’t want to be stuck in a workplace pretending you’re someone you’re not.
- Maintain a strong online profile – This includes making sure your social media profiles are consistent with the professional image you’re projecting. If you’re hoping to work in high-growth businesses, the best thing you can do is to keep your Ribit profile active and updated. Profiles that include a photograph and more detailed information about yourself perform more strongly.
- Follow up – Introducing yourself to someone is only the first step in the networking process. Add them on LinkedIn, send them a message, arrange a coffee, get involved with things they’re doing. Your time is your most valuable investment in building professional relationships.
Starting your career is an exciting challenge. Adam Lea, Head of the Talent Institute, (powered by Startupbootcamp) asked students to embrace change by letting go of ideas of control and becoming comfortable with uncertainty. Adapting to what can feel like a rollercoaster ride of new experiences and tasks will help you become more resilient and reliable.
He says, “if there is one thing we teach that contributes the most it’s the ‘Growth Mindset.’
The key characteristics of a Growth Mindset are:
- flexibility
- entrepreneurism
- journey orientation
- being a team player
- willingness to experiment
- embracing uncertainty and challenges
seeing failure as a learning experience.
He gave his five top tips to develop this Growth Mindset to improve your employability:
- Control is out, embrace uncertainty.
- Tools and techniques are constantly changing, so focus on improving yourself
- If you’re uncertain about something, there is always an answer out there and a way to experiment to find it.
- Value the process over the end result.
- Cultivate grit. Delay your satisfaction and never give up. Employers value your sticking power!
Later in the day, Ribit’s Director Liz Jakubowski participated in a panel discussion about the future of talent with industry leaders Heather Gilmore, Head of Corporate Affairs at Pearson and Tom Larter CEO of Withyouwithme. This was also turned into a podcast with Alice Sidhu and Rik Brown from Leadership of Fools.
“I’d like to see more people in Australia employing more students. If every business of 5 or more employees was to put on a tertiary student each year, nearly every student would have an opportunity to gain meaningful paid work experience over the course of their study”. Liz said.
If you missed out on the Future Work Summit Melbourne, we will be at Future Work Summit Sydney, October 15.
Stay tuned via our events page.