[Sub ID 4176] Rotary Club internships (g’day[sa])

Submission ID: 4176
Organisation name: g’day[sa]
Contact name: Mr Euan Miller
State: SA
Contact email: euan@gdaysa.com.au

Which priority group of the Try, Test and Learn Fund does your idea support?
Young carers, Young parents, Young students at risk of long-term unemployment

What need or issue are you trying to address?
To get young people into career starts in Australia today there are three essential components
1. Job ready. They need to demonstrate five essential skills, outside any formal education,to gain an interview let alone a job.
2. Add value. If they can demonstrate they can add value to a business they will get work even when there is no apparent vacancy.
3. Networks. Over 80% of career start positions are not advertised but filled through employer networks. The target groups lack such networks.

g’day[sa] has been successfully placing international graduates into career start positions over the past 6 years by teaching Australian business culture and the skill set above then placing them in 3 month internships in Rotary clubs to build their networks and receive job offers It is consistently gaining 80% career starts. Euan Miller, the Managing Director, is an active Rotarian, Past Governor and holds many positions of influence across the 30,000 Rotarian network across Australia.

Euan Miller is also past Executive Director Of Enterprise in the Community (Australia) Inc and President of Business Enterprise Centres (Australia) Inc. He has worked with secondary schools across Australia on enterprise education initiatives and set up a successful job placement program in the Northern suburbs of Adelaide for school leavers of generational unemployed families.

What is your idea?
To offer to all three priority groups a job ready program that reflects current employer realities and priorities. This involves a deep understanding of Australian business culture, especially in the Small and Medium Enterprise sectors (SME) which make up over 90% of all businesses and employ the majority of the workforce in Australia. The job seekers will be given the skill set and the confidence to seek jobs where none appear to exist.

They will then be offered to be placed in Rotary clubs on an internship to build their networks to gain a career start. There are 1111 Rotary clubs across Australia.

The g’day[sa] program and Rotary have successfully demonstrated with international graduates how this has worked in Adelaide and Melbourne over the past six years. These graduates, similarly, are severely disadvantaged because most do not have any job experience nor do they have any business networks in Australia. While the graduates will have a qualification and a visa based on Skilled Occupations List (SOL) neither has proved to be an advantage to gaining a career start. Many professions such as Accounting and Finance and Engineering listed on SOL do not employ graduates, whether they be international or Australian, as a matter of course. They seek only experienced and skilled staff through SOL.