I have year 10 work experience coming up and I'm quite lost to be honest. What did y'all do for your work experience? How did you get in? Did you apply somewhere or just work for a relative? Where was it?
Wondering what all the other Aussies have done…
Help For Year 10 Work Experience. Any Advice?
LDglas on 06/06/2019 - 18:47
Comments
I contacted a newspaper and asked if they had a work experience program, they said I could help out in the advertising department for a week. I didn't want a career in newspapers, I just needed to pick something and it was fine.
Look up places where you would like a taste of what it is like to work there and send them an email. If that doesn’t work out, ask your careers adviser to help you find one. This is about educating yourself about different careers - it is a great opportunity, so don’t waste it on something easy to find.
I spent mine in the air traffic control tower at Mascot. That was interesting.
I reckon you should do something a bit different, aim to do something you might not otherwise get to experience, because it is unusual or different.That sounds awesome.
I applied for Bankstown Airport (as it was closer to home), but I never got a reply. One of my schoolmates ended up there also, and apparently they were looking for that week!
Moral of the story: follow up! Not a bad skill to learn anyway
My school gave me a list of stuff to pick from. I'm guessing they didn't for you? If they didn't then best bet is to either go in person to the store/ email store/workplace and say Hi, Id like to apply for year 10 work experience from <insert your school> . List a brief resume eg name,DOB, address, schooling, any work experience (if applicable) ask your careers adviser or work experience teacher to help you on that. You will most likely not get paid, which means you'll prob get whatever you apply for. Going to a relative will be more easier, but applying at a third party place will give you more experience in actually getting a job, instead of saying your applying for work experience you would just change that to the position their offering.
Thank you, very good tips. I guess it's the most about the experience of actually applying more than what you actually do…
no worries good luck, theres no right or wrong, so just enjoy the experience, school is all about training you up for a job/career. If you have a careers advisor, they are the right person to ask at school about these things. He also set up my tax file number which you will need when you first get a paying job, and its hassle free compared to applying for it by yourself from memory
We get lots of work experience kids calling in because they think a vet clinic is playing with puppies. Then they find out that most chores involve cleaning cages and picking up dog poo. It's a great learning experience.
Yep. I went to the vet for my work experience, but I didn't know playing with puppies would be a part of it, as I was more interested in the clinical side of it. I got to observe inside the operating theatre, watch surgeries, watch pets get put down, watch owners cry (not sure if my presence made things awkward, but I kind of just stood in the corner and kept silent), then take the dogs out and make sure none of them accidentally escape and also pick up poo. Was very enlightening, fun, and a memory for me. Never became a vet though.
Work experience was the biggest waste of time. By year 10 most of us had already been doing some sort of work on weekends.
It is very different these days, with some kids (even some who post on here!) never working even through uni.
And it gives the opportunity to try a career, as opposed to the kind of low end work a teenager can get.
Yeah there's a difference between doing work experience in an air traffic control room and making burgers at McDonald's
Yep. In my final year of Uni we did a professional skills course (getting and keeping a job etc). Out of the whole class (~10?) only one person had never had a part time job. Guess who was the insufferable one, always questioning why we had to do this?
If there's a place you want to get behind the scene access, this is your shot. Otherwise is wait until you actually get a job there, own the place or be become famous/powerful.
Pick something that interest you and could be a potential career.I did mine at a local Vet. All you need to do is have initiative, that is picking up the phone and calling or visiting them.
I did mine at Nintendo, it was freaking awesome. I remember going to a shopping centre and helping set up over of those booths
I applied for work experience in year 11 through my school's career advisor. She had this big book of contact details for all these different businesses around the area, and so all I had to do was call up a few from the list and see if they'd be willing to take me up for unpaid work experience. The advisor was the one who dealt with all the paperwork. Out of all the places I called, very few were willing, but I was lucky enough to get a week of work experience at my local chemist.
My work was very involved, I was pretty much treated like a staff member. It was great because they offered me a job there soon after my week was over! Also taught me that pharmacy was not the right profession for me haha.
My friends had done work experience at the zoo, hospital and even retail (free labour lol) through the same program.
email an interesting place and ask if you can hang out for work experience for a week. they wont care who you are or if youre any good because they have no obligation, so aim high.
this is basically the time when high barriers to entry can drop, so ask places that seem impossible to get into, like media or google or something. you might get lucky and talk yourself straight into an internship, that you'd otherwise be competing with 1000 others for at any other time.just dont do what i did and email some random place on friday the week before
or do what i did and find some family friend or relatives with a home business or personal ABN and just hang out for a weekYeah, my school was pretty disfunctional about it and only let us know about a month prior. Here I am 2 weeks before, so there goes my hopes of going somewhere big. (Google actually was my dream place to be.) anyway, I can leave an email anyway, there's nothing to lose.
Mine was not as exciting as the others. However, I applied at Coles, ALDI and EB Games however they all rejected me for being under 18 years old. Seeing that the last retail store at my local shopping center was The Reject Shop, I applied and got accepted on the spot (how ironic XD).
Eventually, my parents found out about this and assisted me in getting work experience in the IT Department for Vic Uni where I withdrew my application from the reject shop and worked in Vic Uni. I enjoyed and loved everything about it and now I am working in the IT industry which was influenced by my initial interest and the work experience I had done.
Moral of the story is, don't let rejection stir you away from your passion. Find an industry you are interested in and apply for work experience. Good luck in your search OP.
I spent a week working in a gynecologist's consulting room
How was it? I almost did mine at a women's health clinic.
It was a lot like working in the hospitality industry… all you do is deal with (profanity) all day…
Don't know how to respond to that pun 😲
They're probably not the ones you'd want to see!
Worked at a video rental store for a week - don’t reckon that’s really possible now!
I was accepted at both an ob-gyn /women's health clinic and the ADF for an air-force aviation role . Was a tough choice for a teenager:)
I spent a week at HMAS Penguin watching videos of Somali pirate boats getting blown out of the water on someone’s phone, going on coffee runs in Mosman, washing cars and doing other meaningful tasks with the junior sailors tasked with looking after me. The most exciting part of the day was knocking off at 1630h.
A good mate of mine spent his week at a law firm photocopying stuff and delivering documents around the city with a cabcharge pass in one hand and a coffee in the other.
I spent 4 days at the GMH plant in Fisherman's Bend back in 2014 (or 13?) for Engineering. Definitely an interesting experience though fairly useless to go there now.
I was given a list from my school and i ended up not picking anything, they placed me in coles but i however got a full time job out of it. If you're interested in getting a job out of it, do something realistic however if your not, go for something different and interesting. A upcoming startup would be a nice idea for work experience.
"A upcoming startup would be a nice idea for work experience."
Highly unlikely. If they accept you, you most likely will be sitting in the corner and watch YouTube the whole day. Noone has time to look after you in a busy startup.
I did one week in a commercial pilot training school. Spent about 4~5 hours a day sitting in the back of various light aircraft while students did tests or flying lessons. Was freaking awesome!
Second week was with RAAF as an avionics tech. Got hands on with a lot of F/A 18 Hornets and got to sit in one. Great fun and a fantastic experience. Not easy to get into though.
My suggestion, do something that you are interested in or something that would give you some skills. See if you can get into a car/truck dealership as a technician. They will have lots of cutting edge stuff and cars are quite high tech now. And you may just learn enough about cars to help you when you have your own. But any trade should be interesting. Electrician, plumber, carpenter, locksmith.
When looking for options, ask whether the company has a work experience program. Doesn't mean that it'll be terrible at a company without it. But if a company does have it, it means they have a process and resources to handle students. It's a guarantee that there will be somebody guiding you during that week rather than just giving you a desktop with games and YouTube so you won't bother anyone.
I spent a week at a Magistrates court. Did a day in each different department including a day in court. Was very interesting!
I worked at the local AMF ten pin bowling centre. Wax up the lanes, line up the bowling balls, hand out the shoes, push around the Bissell but best of all test out the video arcade games; 10 yard fight, time pilot, 1942 (I’m showing my age here, this wasn’t a retro arcade). I was living the dream.
Sadly, I never realised my childhood ambition of becoming an AMF technician in adulthood. Instead, my selfish parents forced me into a University degree and a career in finance.
Dream-crushers.
+1 for time pilot and 1942 :D
The Academy of Interactive Entertainment run work experience programs for students interested in a career in film or game development. https://aie.edu.au/student-information/work-experience/
Lets your child decide and find the role. The real world isn't that kind
The child is the one asking.
Don't work with family/friends. I did accounting, and all I did was type of receipts…
What do you wanna do for a job? What are you interested in? Aim on those places for work experience