The first stage of the Professional Year program is designed to provide you with the knowledge and skills to help you successfully start your professional career in Australia. Encompassing eight face-to-face modules, you’ll need to attend the PE campus one day a week (a choice of weekday and weekend days are available).

Australian Business Culture

This subject focuses on developing communication skills in multicultural and diverse Australian work environments.

You will participate in classroom activities that provide many opportunities to enhance understanding of cross-cultural communication, appreciation of different cultures and how these cultural differences will affect business operations in a global market. Australian Business Culture allows you to look at the role of teams in organisations and the qualities of effective teams and leaders in the workplace.

Accelerating Interview Skills

You will develop the skills needed to master the job selection process through a series of hands-on activities that focus on developing telephone screening and face-to-face interview skills. You will learn how to self-assess and develop your personal brand, enhance your online presence and hone interview preparation and performance. You’ll also learn how to follow up on interviews and the process for receiving and accepting job offers.

Long term career plans are usually a low priority for recent graduates. However, we will encourage you to develop short, medium and longer term career management strategies to achieve your goals. Finding the job is only the first step; once employed there are many things that you’ll need to do to demonstrate you are the right person for the job.

Employer expectations, induction and orientation programs, building workplace relationships, networking, and professional development are some of the themes reviewed in this module.

Australian Workplace Environment

We will increase your understanding and knowledge of relevant Australian workplace legislation, including Workplace Health and Safety regulations.

You’ll explore the development and importance of a company’s vision, mission and core values and how they are linked to organisational, team and individual performance. Equally important is the understanding of appropriate behaviour, workplace norms, and business etiquette to allow you to settle into your Australian workplace with confidence.

Applying Job Search Skills

This subject focuses on how to secure employment in your profession, starting with developing self-awareness, identifying personal characteristics, and highlighting your strengths and weaknesses. We will discuss and evaluate job search strategies and methods to target appropriate job opportunities. Part of this process is understanding the hidden job market, analysing job advertisements and understanding exactly what the employer is looking for.

With the support of highly experienced trainers, you will develop a tailored job application including job application emails, cover letters and resumes.

Professional Meetings & Presentations

Workplace meetings and presentations are an integral part of any work environment and are often an essential mechanism to achieving business outcomes. This subject specifically focuses on developing skills to organise and participate effectively in business meetings, plan and deliver presentations.

You will participate in mock meetings and learn appropriate meeting behaviour, vocabulary, arrangements and responsibilities, documentation and protocol for meeting follow up. You will reflect on what makes a presentation effective, learn about the logical presentation structure and develop professional presentation skills when making a presentation in front of your peers. These skills will be further utilised throughout the subjects of the Professional Year program.

Professional Workplace Writing

Effective writing is a critical skill for the workplace and one that you will be using on a daily basis in your profession. The aim of Professional Workplace Writing is to hone your email and report writing skills. Developing good email structure, style and etiquette, and grammar and language usage will be important in creating impressive first impressions and maintaining reputations with internal and external stakeholders.

Report writing focuses on researching, planning and organising information, drafting to include appropriate structure and design, and final submissions.

Professional Workplace Communication

This subject develops the essential workplace skill of communication and interaction with internal and external clients. This communication could be face-to-face or on the telephone and the context could be formal or informal.

To address this, the focal areas are developing confidence, understanding clients’ needs, establishing rapport, building empathy, enhancing language use and actively listening. In addition, dealing with complaints appropriately and displaying cultural awareness are also key factors to build this skill. In this subject you will learn through active participation in role plays and interactive classroom activities.

Internship Preparation

The aim of the Internship Preparation is to refine and hone your skills in order to become career ready and more confident in your professional business skills prior to your internship.

In this subject you will further develop your ability to confidently deliver presentations in a work environment, refine interview skills which will assist you during your internship interviews, and develop research skills. You will develop your use of technology further, providing necessary business technology skills that will equip you for any work environment in the future.