On the 20 August, Summer Rosewall, Mr Hennessy and myself had the privilege of being able to represent our College amongst 50 other schools at the Youth Employment Forum at NSW parliament. Throughout the day we engaged in many talks by countless entrepreneurs who gave us many tips about entering the working field.

The day begun with a talk from Mr Chris Patterson, the Member for Camden, who welcomed us to the day and gave us insight for what we could expect to hear and see from the guest speakers and what we could expect in the future regarding job availability for the youth. Following Mr Patterson’s talk, we then had a brief chat with the Premier of NSW, Gladys Berejiklian, who spoke to us about the approximate 200,000 job opportunities that NSW Parliament are hoping to have by 2020. She gave us tips about the workplace such as, in a work environment “it is important to be yourself and take as many opportunities as you can, no matter what the company is or whether it interests you or not”.

Following Gladys Berejiklian’s speech, we then had a talk from Jane Huxley, Chief Executive of Spotify and she shared with us that the average person goes through 7-11 jobs throughout their lives, some of which may correlate with each other and others can differ and that 4-5 of these jobs haven’t been invented yet. She also stressed the importance of having a good work ethic when it comes to your job, as it will help a person to become recognised in the working field by employers. Following this statement she also stressed that the way that you behave during your working years trumps the skills that you may have in that particular department, again emphasising the importance of having a high work ethic. Lastly, she spoke about having high resilience, which appeared to be the theme of the day, and linked it to her favourite childhood toy, the ‘wibble wobble’, whose slogan was to wobble and always get back up.

Next, we then had a talk from Richard Deutch, the CEO of Deloitte, a company with 80,000+ employees of who stressed the idea that everyone has a choice as to whether they want to engage in a particular activity or not. He emphasised that, as youth, we should put our hands up if we want to do something and not just sit back and watch opportunities pass us by. He also encouraged us to follow a pathway that we love to make the working experience that little bit more enjoyable.

Throughout the day, we participated in activities by the company XVenture such as building a house from squares and a photo, knocking down dominoes and stacking soaps to see who can build the highest tower, where we worked on our team building skills with students from other schools. Throughout these activities, we listened to more talks from other entrepreneurs who had experienced hardship in the working field. For example, we had a talk from a young girl named Matilda who plays for Sydney F.C, and she told us her story where, by the age of 22, she has had to have 2 ACL reconstructions. When asked why she kept on pursuing her career as a soccer player, she told us that it was her passion and that even though it had lots of downs, it also had ups. We then heard a talk from Sean Barry from Channel 7, who grew up in Campbelltown and had no clue about what he wanted to do after school. He then fell into the reporting/journalism pathway where he constantly heard the word “no”. However, he still persisted and asked around on how he could follow his path until he got a “yes”. The day ended with a talk from the famous Aussie chef, Luke Mangan who told us of his hardships of how he wasn’t good at school and when applying for a job he only too heard the word “no” but through persistence and resilience, he was able to grow and succeed in his career.

Key ideas that Summer and I learnt from the day is that the word “no” doesn’t mean it’s the end of the world. It just means that you have to try again and again until you get a “yes”, no matter how many attempts it takes. We also learnt that you get what you put in, if you put in no effort, you aren’t going to get anything back, and vice versa so you should always put in that little bit extra. Lastly, we learnt that it’s okay to wobble as long as you always get back up.

Maya Tvedsborg – Vega, Year 11