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The variety of work is just amazing and it's really
good to be able to go home at the end of almost every
day and say I actually learnt something today.
I studied arts and law at the University of Queensland
and I got to the end of my five year degree and started
shooting off job applications all over the place.
There's just such a range of areas that people
can get in to and it might be the case that
you've studied one particular degree at university
and end up working somewhere completely different
but you've got the option to try it out.
Whether it's through rotations on the graduate program or
taking up acting opportunities once you've left
the program to move around and really find out what you
enjoy doing and I guess getting a sense of helping
the Australian community while you're doing that.
At the moment I am a principal legal officer and
I have moved from being an employment lawyer primarily
and I am actually off line at the moment doing
a really big procurement project buying about
$35m worth of legal services for the department and
I've represented the department in places like
Fair Work Australia and the Australian Human Rights Commission
and the Administrative Appeals Tribunal
certainly the department's also involved
in litigation in Federal Court and that sort of
thing and that's a really interesting part of
the job that I quite enjoy.
From the time I came into the graduate program I've just had a string of managers
who've said what do you want to do and they've
been really supportive.
Whether it was a...I kind of liked employment law at university let's
give that a go and they trained me up to do that and
I loved that and they've been really supportive
when I've wanted to go off and do projects and
even now I've got great managers who've said to me
well you've been doing this for a while, you've gotten
really good at it, time to pick you up and move
you so you can develop into other areas and become
a really well-rounded lawyer.
I guess moving to Canberra from Queensland was a bit of a shock to the system.
I moved here in the middle of winter so
I wasn't quite used to the cold but coming into
Canberra with a graduate program means that you've
really got a good network of people that you become
really friendly with really quickly so a really good support network.
Working in the legal space it can
be pretty hectic sometimes so being able to stop
and take a break and have morning tea or go for drinks
after work can be really important.
I've danced since I was four years old and when I moved from
Queensland I basically walked into a club here
and have become great friends with the girls that I dance with,
it's made a world of difference moving interstate.
I think particularly being in a fairly busy
legal role, being able to get out at the
end of the day and go to a gym class or go to a dance class
or even just go for a run and clear your head
is really important to me.
The Department of Human Services graduate program certainly offers
something that not many other graduate programs would.
The variety of work, the public profile of
your employer is really important and I'd certainly
recommend that people just apply and go for it.