Graduate Opportunities

By Stuart Minotti

If somebody asked me, “What has your first year at ANZ been like?”, my answer would be “it has been like being on a roller coaster ride, full of exhilarating highs, occasional lows, and a number of twists and turns thrown in for good measure”. That is the way it should be.

Being part of the 2009 ANZ Graduate Program gave me the opportunity to throw myself in the deep end and deal with real challenges, helping me to quickly develop new skills in my role as a Business Analyst. Book-ended by GO Week (Graduate Orientation Week) and the Graduate Ball, the ANZ Graduate Program was a constant blur of activity full of graduate development training workshops, a three month graduate project and networking events with senior executives and fellow graduates from all over Australia and New Zealand.

The program also provided many graduates with a number of rotations in different areas of the bank. Working on short term rotations allows graduates to experience different functions and gives them a greater understanding of how ANZ operates as a whole.

For a lot of graduates 2009 was a year of transition. Some were coming to ANZ straight from university, some had taken time off to travel, and others were trying out another career altogether. For a lot of graduates it was about getting used to working from 9am to 5pm every day and enduring the crawl of peak hour traffic to and from work while making regular trips between ANZ buildings for work meetings. All this takes a bit to get used to.

To add to the mix, there’s the need to balance competing work priorities, meet tight deadlines and deliver high-quality work. When you are on such a steep learning curve, you’ll sometimes be stretched to the limit and you're bound to get stressed. Speaking from personal experience, you're also bound to make the occasional blunder.

You will discover that in these situations you learn the most about yourself and just what you are capable of. Yes, it is scary, your pulse will quicken, your palms will go sweaty and everything in you will want to run away, but if you embrace the challenges that come your way, you will never know where they will take you.

If you are successful in applying for the 2011 ANZ Graduate Program, my advice to you would be to embrace it, believe in yourself, learn from every experience and just enjoy the ride!

For more information on the ANZ Graduate Program, visit our GO Profile.