“ The government offers so many opportunities to move around - who knows where I'll be in five years time?”
I have a Bachelor of Commerce from Deakin University and am currently working at the Department of Treasury and Finance in the Budget and Financial Management Division.
The GRAD Scheme, with its opportunity to rotate through three different roles in order to gain an understanding of different departments, work cultures and projects, is the main thing that attracted me to working in government. To date I have worked in the Department of Treasury and Finance – Commercial Division and the Department of Infrastructure – Business and Financial Advisory Branch.
This year I have faced many challenges including adjusting to working life and starting three new jobs in a year! By far the biggest challenge has been coordinating part of the election costings project. This project involved looking at election promises and coordinating the costings and comments from Treasury’s perspective while consulting with other departments to get more information if required. This project required us to work to extremely tight deadlines while being 100% accurate and liaising with people that were under a lot of pressure.
I really enjoyed this project and the responsibility that came along with it. It was a great opportunity to work along side people that are a lot more senior than me. This role placed a high level of expectation on me and required me to develop skills in a short period of time by attending briefing and update sessions. I found my colleagues approachable and happy to answer any questions I had which made my task a lot easier.
From this experience I witnessed the importance of being able to step up to a challenge and be clear thinking, approachable, adaptable and willing to take on board other people’s opinions.
The government offers so many opportunities to move around – who knows where I’ll be in five years’ time? I hope to have gained a good understanding of the public sector, have exposed myself to a broad range of experiences and to be able to contribute to the outputs of the department that I work in. I also look forward to supervising some Grads myself!