It's Just Different

There is no doubt the job market has changed over the last 30 years or so.

As I look to my own future I wanted to gain a little understanding of what things were like when my parents entered employment. So, I had a chat to Dad about how he 'fell' into his banking role at the ANZ.

The story goes something like this.

Dad secured a scholarship to Nudgee College at the end of grade 10 and moved himself to Brisbane for his last two years of school. He said he was pretty over schooling by the end of grade 12 and had no real aspirations to go to uni. He loved accounting and maths and figured a job in a bank somewhere would be perfect. He sent a letter of interest to all the major banks and was invited to have a chat at the ANZ in Brisbane.

During that chat he was offered the perfect job. He was asked where he wanted to go and when he wanted to start. He had to make his mind up on the spot and accepted the offer to go back home to Warwick and start a few months after school finished. He was asked to similar meetings from the other big banks but the ANZ just happened to get in first.

So, Dad went to school, sent a couple of letters and found himself in the ideal job. I have to give him some credit though. He worked his bum off to get that Nudgee scholarship and worked even harder to get DUX of year 12. Hello, genius! I would like to think he passed some of his brains to me but Maths B in high school blew that theory clean out of the water.

It's funny to think I have to do more now just to secure an unpaid two week journalism internship. I mean there are introductory emails, CV's, cover letters, interviews, insurance and then a bunch of paperwork to reflect on the experience. It would be nice to go back to the early eighties.

#ashleighdwan #beyondthestory #journalism #jobs