Ashley, one of our Career Ready Ambassadors at the Bendigo Campus, explains what La Trobe’s Career Ready Advantage Award is and how it has helped them get career ready!
What is the Career Ready Advantage Award?
The Career Ready Advantage Award is La Trobe’s employability program that encourages students to develop and build their employability skills and experiences throughout their degree. Students complete activities across three categories at their own pace. The three activity categories are:
- Professional learning
- Practical experiences
- Career portfolio
These activities then count towards their “Award” which has three levels, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Each level requires four Professional Learning, two Practical Experiences, and three Career Portfolio activities, and the award is recognised on the student’s academic transcript.
How has it been helpful for you?
The Career Ready Advantage Award helped me improve my employability skills while also rewarding me for activities I was already doing. Through the Award, I was granted additional opportunities to meet professionals within my field, and improve my interview skills, and the award was added to my academic transcript which I have had to send to employers multiple times as part of my application for graduate programs.
The activities I completed gave me a reason to focus on intentionally building my employability skills throughout my entire degree. This was an incredibly useful mindset as I was able to improve my career portfolio from my first year. My goal was that by the time I was in my final year, I would be able to choose a graduate job and accept a position that I loved. I am in my final semester now and can say that this has been the case.
I would highly recommend any student who is feeling lost in their career journey or is looking for an extra CV boost to start working towards their Career Ready Advantage Award.
What are the different activities?
- Professional learning includes the AIM and Wominjeka modules, careers and employability workshops and webinars, LinkedIn Learning courses, leadership seminars, and even first aid courses, computer programming, and many others! All short courses, workshops, and professional development activities will be counted if they will assist the student to develop skills and knowledge for their future career.
- Practical experiences can include the Industry Mentoring Program through La Trobe, study tours, internships, placements, volunteering, or other extracurricular activities on campus or in the community. Students can also claim their paid employment.
- Career portfolio activities include developing a CV, building a LinkedIn profile, attending or recording mock interviews, presenting an elevator pitch, and even submitting sample job applications or a career plan.
Career Hub provides HEAPS of advice and guidance as to how to go about completing these activities. Often they are activities that students are already doing and the Award just has found a way to reward that and make sure the student is documenting them.
Start uploading your activities to complete your Career Ready Award.
Talk to a Career Ready Ambassador if you would like more information about how you can compete for a Career Ready Advantage Award this year!