Young talent time

Monash University alumnus Adrian Cassar knows full well the value of bringing ambitious young graduates into his organisation. As the support and services delivery manager for global IT consultancy firm BPD Zenith, Cassar recently employed a Monash Master of Information Technology graduate, and is looking to employ a second graduate later this year.

“The space we operate in is quite innovative,” says Cassar, who completed a Bachelor of Computing in 2004. He says young graduates add enormous value by coming into the workplace and challenging the ideas of previous generations. “We like that. We like to see what we can do differently.” 

However, Cassar, who has previously used traditional recruiting methods such as job boards, says finding suitable candidates has been an ongoing challenge. 

After reading about Monash Talent on LinkedIn in 2017, Cassar immediately made contact and is now a self-described “advocate” of the new employment service. Monash Talent is a full-service recruitment agency operated by the University that helps employers find the most compatible candidates using an innovative scientific approach.

Game-based career matching

The service is built around a unique, game-based career-matching platform, whereby graduates play a series of online games that assess 50 personality traits, including their key strengths. It’s based on research by Mercer Australia, which uses big data and cognitive and behavioural analysis to align workers with workforce needs. The platform also enables graduates to upload their CV and complete a short video interview.

Using the new employment service, in March 2018 Cassar employed Monash Master of Information Technology graduate Muhtasim Billah as an IT consultant.

Billah, who studied at Monash as an international student, says Monash Talent made finding his first job “simple and stress-free”.

“International graduates can often face challenges finding their initial jobs because they have a lack of network, a lack of market knowledge and a lack of proficiency in communication skills,” he says. “Monash Talent was really fantastic. They really took the time to determine where I would be best matched and kept me informed throughout the whole process.”

Monash is the first Australian university to offer a fully integrated career development and employment service designed to respond to the challenges faced by employers in finding the right graduates. Across Australia, employment prospects for graduates have fallen since 1990, when 87.8 per cent of graduates had full-time jobs. By 2014, that number had dropped to 68.1 per cent.

Cassar says his experience with Monash Talent has been so positive, he plans to continue using the agency. “They really solved an ongoing and time-consuming challenge for us by screening and shortlisting only the really suitable candidates and really understanding what we do as an organisation.”