Network Now 2009 - University of South Australia

Hi, my name's Rebecca Gill and I'm here representing the Advertiser.
Hi I'm Tom Baxter from the Zoo.
Phil Morton, managing partner of Morton Phillips, parent group for MPS People Solutions,
proud sponsor of tonight's event
UniSA Network Now.
Lots of people were talking about it, especially the lecturers.
This is the second time I'm attending it, I attended Network Now last year as well.
It's a good opportunity to network and meet new people.
This is the best opportunity for me to network with different people here.
I actually won a competition from UniSA.
I actually won it on the CareerShop.
I was one of the winners for the highschools.
My son came to one of the careers expos or careers days
for the business marketing and communication course
and of course he's applied for that, but he went into a competition
which he was one of four, I think four students,
who actually won.
I have listed a couple of questions before I attend this networking session
so I've got like one week to prepare those questions and hopefully I'll get
my answers to those questions.
Last year I was not at all prepared as in, you know, how to talk to the experts
and how to get their guidelines, but this time I've got a fair bit of an idea, you know.
I know what I'm doing, I know what my expertise are and I know
you know, how to meet, how to greet and
how to actually talk regarding the right stuff at the right time.
I'm hoping like I'll meet new people, looking at the profile I found
like pretty interesting. They have pretty good experience, would like to share
some of their thoughts about how they have achieved this place
after so many years and I would like to get some motivation from them.
I just want to familiarise with many of the people I've just seen on the TV
and I've just heard of them so I would like to really meet them.
I'm hoping to get a lot of experience from this
learn what to do and what not to do in a professional setting
and maybe get a few contacts, that would be good.
I'm hoping to get a job, realistic, and then on top of that
I'm looking for the experts advice to apply
in my life basically, you know.
Just maybe get some business connections before I even enter so I'm a step ahead of everyone.
Don't turn it into a social event. Have a set agenda
of what you actually want to achieve and what you want to get out of the night.
Target specific industries or people from particular industries.
Have your list of questions that you want to ask them.
But also more importantly, have a list of benefits that
you could actually help those potential businesses or organisations
that you're hoping to get into. Coming prepared and
having your ammunition just helps tremendously to make it
not only an enjoyable night, but a very successful night for you careerwise as well.
The Network Now event is something unique in the marketplace.
No one else is doing this, there are other events that
happen but they are much more at the professional end and they don't cater for
graduates, recent graduates, to go out and find a way into the market
at the level that we're dealing at tonight.
Certainly been a lot of business cards thrown around
mostly from the students and quite a few people from the industry as well.
Most of the questions I've been getting from students have been "Can they get a job"
and "What do I think of the giant panda's arrival at the zoo"
Most of the students just want to know how I got to the position where I am.
I've spoken to a number of students this evening that I think have
huge potential out there in the marketplace.
They really just need their first chance, and that's the hardest part
Clients I know are looking for graduates, but they look for graduates with
two years experience. How the hell are they supposed to get a job if they haven't got
two years experience? It's up to employers to take a chance on some of these people,
take them on, give them a go and then give them that
experience that gives them a great start in their career.
I've been actually surprised by the amount of students that have just bowled up to us and had a chat
and they have lots of questions to ask and yeah, it's been
really good. They haven't been shy, so good on you guys.
I can't actually reveal some of the people that I'll be approacing after tonight
but there will certainly be a few people receiving an email tomorrow morning.
I think I've given people some good ideas about where to go and
what to do next and certainly they can always get in contact with me
and I can give them some career guidance if that's what they may want.
Sensational. I've actually
got to catch up with a number of people who I've heard around the business circuit
that I've actually never had an opportunity to deal with and I got
to meet three of those people tonight which was absolutely sensational.
It was absolutely fantastic. I got to meet a couple
of guests who were absolute experts.
It was really good. We got a lot of people to talk to and we
always sort of knew people always on websites and TV shows
but here we got to get them to speak personally
one on one and it was a really good experience to talk to them.
I got a couple of business cards and given out a couple so it's good.
It's always a pleasure to meet experts from various industries
but the best thing was I met the experts from the industry
where I want to work. So I got the experts from
human resource management and got a couple of cards and I'm going to mail
them tommorrow and going to sit for a cup of coffee soon with them.
Specifically I would like to thank Elaine from DFEEST
I had a pretty good chance to chat with her
maybe ten minutes, ten or fifteen minutes but it was really helpful and she guided me a lot on
how to go ahead with my career transition.
She was in my hit list and I had that opportunity to grab it. It was really lucky for me.
I had the best networking night I've had in ages.
A lot of business will come out of this evening and
a lot of support for UniSA as well for putting on such an event.