ProGrad Brisbane

LinkedIn has released the most overused Buzz words for 2011. The words that made the list are:

•       Creative’
•       Effective’
•       Communication skills’
•       Strategic planning’

These Buzzwords have come from professional profiles all over the world! The study mainly focused on Countries such as: France, Spain, Ireland, Singapore, USA and Australia.

At ProGrad we have come up with some alternative words you can use for your LinkedIn Profile. These include:

•       Tech Savvy!
•       Young and willing!
•       Open to anything!
•       Ready and rearing to go!

ProGrad would love to see these phrases make the next linked in Buzz Word list! For more suggestions and inspiration of buzz words please feel free to contact ProGrad directly on (02) 8235 8300. Or Email ProGrad at info@prograd.com.au

So you have finished your degree, maybe travelled a little, are well and truly sick of your part time job and decided you are finally ready to bite the bullet and get into full time work. But what job is that?

If you are a recent graduate looking to get into the business sector, it can be daunting knowing where to start, especially if your studies haven’t necessarily directed you into a one stop job.

One angle you may want to consider is a role in sales. 

No not tele-marketing, and don’t worry I’m not talking about standing on the street corner trying to get people to sign up to the latest scam.

I mean genuine corporate sales, working within a well established company on a competitive salary, getting that all important foot in the door and gaining the valuable experience that can take you from new comer, to old pro.

Sales provides graduates a unique opportunity to learn about a business from the inside out. Working in correspondence with all other parts of a business, the sales department gives you the best exposure and often a great head start into avenues usually closed to entry level positions.

It might not be an option you had ever considered before but for graduates who are ambitious, eager to work and wanting to get some hands on experience in a role that will help them progress in their career, Sales may be the yellow brick road for you.

ProGrad specialize in placing recent university graduates into business to business sales roles. For more information or to apply for any of our roles, contact the ProGrad Graduate Management team on 02 8235 8300 or alternatively email us at info@prograd.com.au

ProGrad currently have a few openings available for Trainers to join the ProGrad service delivery team.

Each month as our placements increase, so does the demand for our training. ProGrad are an organisation that also offers full training to existing sales teams making the role incredibly challenging. 

We’re looking to grow our in-house capability and are currently looking for candidates interested in either continuing or starting a role in training.  Ideally, the candidate would have relevant experience in either developing or driving a sales team and have had some exposure to training in the past.  This role will involve delivering some in-house training for the ProGrad graduate modules, yet will also have the opportunity to work on bespoke/ tailor made training programs for our clients.

Package will be negotiated with the individual applicants and the start date is immediate.  For more information, please email kingsley@prograd.com.au or davinia@prograd.com.au

If you would like more information about ProGrad and our tailored offering, please see us online www.prograd.com.au

ProGrad have another offering in the graduate market with a website specialising on assisting graduates to meet employers using this online graduate jobs portal. 

www.graduatejobs.com.au is a relatively new site which is experiencing a lot of interest from graduate employers looking to grow their teams in Australia.  This site is currently free for employers to post advertisements which means that we should start to see more and more graduate opportunities listed. 

If you would like to be kept up to date with graduate vacancies, please log onto the site as a graduate job seeker at www.graduatejobs.com.au

ProGrad is a graduate recruitment company and own this jobs portal.  For more information about each offering, please contact our Head Office in Sydney on 02 8235 8300.

• Psychometric testing
• Self introductions
• Group dynamic exercises
• Feedback sessions
• Business Case Study
• Feedback sessions
• Group Presentation
• One to one interviews
• Verbal and numerical reasoning tests
• Individual presentations

Every placement includes four programmes designed to give candidates the basic skills right the way up to more advanced account Management. For more information about the ProGrad concept, please contact us on 02 8235 8300.  Or visit our website on www.prograd.com.au

ProGrad service Australia yet only have offices in Sydney.  Because of this, we do tend to service other locations on a fortnightly basis, depending on Client demand.

ProGrad are currently working hard to highlight opportunities for our graduates in Brisbane and surrounding areas and once we have highlighted an abundance – you can be sure to see us running an assessment day.

If however, you are keen to relocate to Sydney or Melbourne for opportunities, please call us directly and speak to a consultant here about your options.  ProGrad have a variety of options available for candidates looking to relocate. 

You would still need to attend an assessment day in either Sydney or Melbourne, however once this has been attended it does mean we can start to propose you for interviews with our client partners.  All of our roles have an immediate start date and so you will need to be in a position to relocate immediately.

If this is the case, please contact one of the ProGrad Graduate Management Team on 02 8235 8300 and explain your situation with us directly.

ProGrad acts as an “outsourced” graduate recruitment company for many of the world’s largest organisations.  Working across a variety of industries, we specialise in selecting the top graduate talent from across the country and placing those individuals into organisations which invest in their training and development.  We provide each graduate with a master class training program to ensure their success.  This is an investment made by our Clients on behalf of their new recruits. 

We’re selling the concept of “graduates who sell themselves” and our core activity is placing graduates into B2B sales roles in companies. 

All businesses require high caliber individuals to help them grow their client base and take their products/ services to market.  The most integral part of any organization is the business to business sales team and offers graduates the greatest exposure to business.  Not only do they understand the inner mechanics of an organization, but they get to work alongside some of the most talented business professionals in a fast paced environment.  Business development roles are challenging yet hugely rewarding for the right people.  Most of our graduates will out-earn all other graduate programs within their first three years in a business. 

For more information about the Prograd model, please contact the Prograd team on 02 8235 8300.  Alternatively, you can visit us online www.prograd.com.au

ProGrad themselves are a sales engine and we require sales activity in order to generate new business.  Our core activity is assessing, placing and training graduates into B2B sales careers, and naturally we recruit using our own methods for these roles.

ProGrad have over 20 recent graduates working hard in our office to drive sales activity and cold calling is a fundamental part of that process.  As a result, we aim to run a structured cold calling session each week (normally on a Tuesday) during which time the entire ProGrad team stay in the office and hit the phones. 

Their primary objective is to book business meetings and having everyone in the office can make this process so much easier.  Employees don’t suffer any feelings of anxiety speaking on the telephone in an environment where they are the only ones doing so.  Over time, as their confidence increases in this area, it becomes less important to have that comfort blanket of people around them cold calling. 

ProGrad have found this method to be very successful and have even seen employees drive themed cold calling days which incorporate more fun themes such as dress-ups and prizes.

ProGrad are also a full sales training organisation and train many companies in this area, coaching sales managers to drive more activity from their teams.  If you would like more information about how this is done, please contact the ProGrad team on 02 8235 8300.  Alternatively, you could email us info@prograd.com.au

Held at The Ivy in Sydney, the IAB awards are to recognise and reward interactive advertising campaigns that have met or surpassed their goals.  With many ProGrad employers sponsoring these awards, we felt it was a great opportunity show our support and hopefully bump into some of our ProGrad candidates.

http://www.iabawards.com.au/

We weren’t disappointed!  After a few short minutes, we had bumped into many of our candidates, placed within the media industry with companies like News Digital Media, Sensis and B&T Magazine.

We’re looking forward to the next awards event…and the free food/ drink that will come with it!

Davinia

At ProGrad, we’re primarily dealing with “generation Y” (yuk, I’m really starting to dislike that term).  Regardless, these are recently graduated individuals about to embark on their graduate career.  Great news!  Although…there are a few things to be aware of…

1) Voicemail:  expect that prospective employers will be calling you upon receipt of your resume.  With that in mind, REMOVE those “joke” voicemails.  Record a new, corporate sounding message.  If a potential employer calls your voicemail and is less than impressed, you can probably expect they won’t be a) leaving a message or b) calling back.

2) Email address: if your email address on your resume is that same one you registered in your school days, and represents something like sillychick1986, my professional recommendation is to CHANGE IT!  Goes without saying, right?  You’d be surprised…we see it all here.

3) Public Facebook/ Myspace profiles: just make them private.  Please! 

That should help for starters…assuming the rest of your resume is free from grammatical errors, spelling mistakes and photos.

For more information about structuring your resume, you are welcome to attend a ProGrad assessment day.  If you would like to find out more, please contact one of the ProGrad Graduate Management Team on 02 8235 8300.

Davinia

As we approach August 2009, we can certainly report an increase in graduate opportunities which have been available over recent months.

with a slow start to 2009, companies were reluctant to grow their teams, simply wanting to see what might happen with the global economy.  By May/ June, we started to see an increase in the confidence of companies, still realising the need to sell and therefore grow their teams using ProGrad.

Currently the majority of roles lie within FMCG, and Technology companies, proving their resilience to the recession.  We are still actively working with recent graduates to place them in corporate careers.  ProGrad have and always will specialise in the business to business sales teams within organisations, which again has proved to be a hot-spot for graduates opportunities.  With marketing roles deemed a “luxury” spend for companies, the emphasis is definitely back on the sales teams. 

If you are a recent University graduate, looking to kick start your corporate career within one of our client organisations, please contact ProGrad now by calling us on 02 8235 8300.  Alternatively, you can apply online, by clicking on www.prograd.com.au

I was recently watching a news report on the different ways people are trying to find money these days. Without a large amount of full time or part time roles available, many 20-30 years old are looking into participating in focus groups, market research, and house cleaning services or even garage sales to collect a few extra dollars.

That said, the majority of people are simply looking for the easy option – “all I need is one great idea, thats all.”  There is this common misconception that business success stories (like Facebook/ Google/ Twitter) came about overnight and became this huge financial success – with limited effort.  As though the “one big idea” was all it took.  Frustrating I am sure for the people behind successful organisations.  I am sure that none of them would suggest it was easy. 

Ultimately, any entrepreneur needs to develop some business skills and some strong commerical accumen.  Only then, will any of your business ideas reach their ultimate success.  We would recommend any budding entrepreneur to start their career within a corporate sales environment in order to gain relevant skills in business.  Understanding the differences between profit and loss, the principles of cash flow, developing the ability to generate revenue through selling will all be essential skills for anyone looking to start their own business.  Don’t expect to put up a website and for it take off overnight and start to earn you copious amounts of money straight away.  Get some skills, generate some understanding and do things properly. 

Sophie

ProGrad is an assessment, placement and training centre. If you would like to know more about our services, please call us directly on 02 8235 8300 or visit our website at www.prograd.com.au

Article taken from Sydney Morning Herald: 01/07/09

“When it comes to small business, there are three words that can make all the difference.

As a small business entrepreneur, you can often convince yourself that you need to do everything. And if you’re a control freak who can’t let go, you can end up with way too much on your plate. But instead of resigning yourself to the idea that it’s the small business owner’s lot in life to do everything – including taking out the rubbish – it could be time for a new mantra. Delegate, automate or delete.

Delegate
If you are new in business, you might think that you aren’t yet big enough to justify delegate. That might be true but remember that delegating does not mean you need a full-time staff member. You might have a casual person to help you with administration. You might have an bookkeeper that comes in once a month to do your accounts. Or you might have a virtual assistant to help you make calls and do research.

The beauty about these options is that you only have to pay for the hours you use. So you don’t have a fixed overhead that you have to feed each month. When you are deciding whether to delegate, compile a list of tasks that someone else could do – that could be anything from creating spreadsheets to vacuuming the shop floor. Identify the number of hours spent on these tasks and determine whether your time could be better spent generating revenue for those hours. If the revenue you can generate is much greater that the cost of delegating, go for it. You need to free yourself up from non-revenue generating work so that you can bring in the dollars.

Remember that delegating doesn’t stop there. Consider delegate your domestic duties too. If your time could be better spent generating revenue rather than queuing up at Coles, changing the kitty litter, or mopping your balcony, maybe it’s time to think about delegating your domestic tasks too.

Automate
If there’s anything you can automate, do it. Go through your business with a fine tooth comb and see where you can automate. The process of identifying then implementing the automation can be slow and painful, but it will be worth it in the end. I run a couple of training centres and enrolments used to be taken manually – either by phone, fax or email. Once the enrolment came in, we had to manually reply a confirmation to each person.

While this was fine when we started out some years ago, it soon grew into a time-sucking process. Since we have automated the system, it has saved hours of administration each day.

Remember that even though you should automate, that doesn’t mean you should take the human element out of the transaction altogether. Always be available to customers who want to speak to a real person. Some business owners get too excited about the idea of automating (thinking they never have to speak to customers again) that they no longer include a phone number on their websites. This is a big mistake. While there are some customers who are happy to use your automated process, there are many customers who still want the human touch.

Delete
In some cases, you may just need to delete. Perhaps you receive countless enquiries from people all asking the same question. Perhaps you have prospective suppliers knocking on your door every second day trying to get your business. In these cases, I’m not suggesting that you ignore them totally. But maybe you could create a form letter or series of FAQs that your assistant can use in replying to them.

You know that piece of paper that’s been sitting on your desk for the past two months? The one you’ve been meaning to read? If you haven’t read it already, chuck it in the bin. Deleting is about getting rid of clutter to clear your intray and reduce your to-do list. Be ruthless.

Delegate, automate and delete. Three words that can transform the way do you business.

Source: 01/07/09, Three Words That Can Transform Your Business, www.smh.com.au