Employability Blog

Using LinkedIn led Rajvi Rangrej to an internship with a design firm and lots of great contacts – but it wasn’t something she was keen to do initially. But when she put up a logo she’d created for AUT Indian Student Association, everything changed.

Want to get out of your bubble a bit, increase your confidence and feel connected more to the world? Two students talk about how much they have grown in confidence and developed valuable skills through volunteering and the Edge Award. Get inspired.

The gaming world is an exciting industry to enter – particularly for Māori creative Reuben Shortland (Ngāti Hine) who is helping create games with Māori characters for global game design and development company Metia Interactive. An AUT Digital Design graduate, Reuben talks of his role at Metia Interactive and his career path into 3D animation.

Pasifika people seemed invisible in the corporate world to Sally Fogavai when she first started studying business and this made her unsure about looking for internships or jobs in corporate environments. But through the TupuToa Pasifika internship programme Sally has found a new world of opportunity, including an internship and part time role with a large company.

Construction engineering graduate April Faitua was delighted to get into the Kāinga Ora 18-month graduate programme working on construction that brought about social change. April has now taken up the role of consultant information manager for Auercon in their digital engineering team. She talks about her Kāinga Ora graduate programme experience.

Students often ask whether they should bother with writing a cover letter. When I surveyed 15 employers recently about CVs and cover letters, I found six of them read a candidate’s cover letter before they read their CV – yep before! Only two employers considered a cover letter optional. So short answer - yes, it is worthwhile. Here’s are some of those employers' thoughts on cover letters.

Covid-19 has changed how we work, live and think. It has given us a chance to reassess and reflect on our approach to study, life and work. Employability and Career specialist Rebecca Du looks at how to make the most of it.

A chance encounter with AUT employability services gave Ghazi Suliyanto the help he needed to gain a great internship, part time job and excellent graduate role. He urges all students to make the most of the professional and free service.

Clambering out of boats and crossing muddy water to bring supplies and support to the Rohingya people in Myanmar camps is just one part of the job for Su Myat Kyaw, medical activity manager for Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders). It’s exciting, worthwhile and humbling, says Su who undertook the AUT Edge Award and Beyond AUT Award as well as studying disaster and risk management at AUT.

The chance to get tips from employers and recruiters is attracting strong numbers of students to the employer presentations run by AUT Employability over March. Read the top tips from three students that attended a number of these events.