Keen as ever to participate in the ONU Careers Advice evening, over fifty Old boys volunteered their time. From aviation to construction, banking, community services, education, software engineering, digital marketing, journalism, law, medicine, logistics, politics and sports management, the wealth and breadth of expertise in the room on the night, for the benefit of senior students, was invaluable.

Equipping our boys with the right tools and knowledge to face the challenges of the 21^st Century workforce informs the Newington Careers philosophy. Part of the process of assessing and identifying career interests lies with talking with experts in their fields and delving beyond the glossy brochures.   Held annually in June, the ONU Careers Advice Evening enables Old Boys across a diverse range of professions and industries to share their career knowledge, insights and experience with our senior students.

The one-to-one advice expo setting promotes a valuable exchange of advice and questions. Students were encouraged to consider what they enjoy, what they’re good at and what the world needs and ask questions to reflect on this. As well as fostering interest in their industry, advice from Old Boys was broad ranging covering alternate paths to their career, most enjoyable and least enjoyable aspects of their industry, biggest challenges and future prospects of their industry and what personal characteristics do people need to be successful in their industry or profession.

Save the Date for 2016 – Thursday 16 June.

ONU Mentor Program – A Case Study

From the Mentor Edward Sainsbury (ON 1989), Advisory and Equity Solutions, CommonweaIth Bank was able to assist a recent Old Newingtonian, Nick Charlwood (ON 2008) in a mentoring role. Ed’s approach to mentoring involved explaining to Nick how mentoring can work and establishing guidelines for roles, responsibilities and expectations. Ed points out that this doesn’t need to be overly formal but does need to address what the mentee wants and expects from the process. Along the way, Ed asked Nick to list his goals and general interests and also talked about his own background.

Ed discovered Nick’s strong background in sports and set up a meeting with David Giffin (ex-Wallaby) who made the transition into the Structured Asset Finance team at CBA. The aim of the meeting was for David to give Nick some insight into how to sell himself and highlight his key transferrable skills. In order for both participants to speak freely, confidentiality was assured.

From the Mentee Nick Charlwood says “Ed set up a meeting with me to look at the my career goals and what I was hoping to achieve with the process. I told him I was struggling completing applications and selling myself as an all round applicant rather than just on marks and he put me in contact with ex-Wallaby David Giffin. When I spoke to Dave he gave me a background of what he had done and how he thought a sports career had helped him in business. It gave me a great understanding of the importance business places on performing under pressure, working in a team environment and being successful when you set your mind to something.

Ed also helped me update my cover letter and CV and include all of the material I covered with David. I strongly believe this helped me achieve the Graduate position that I have just started at Hall Chadwick.”

The guidance that an Old Boy Mentor, through his own career, contacts, experience and guidance can provide a young ONU member is immeasurable.

If you are interested in sharing your skills and experience, sign up to the ONU Mentor program.