What's your job about?
RACV aims to improve lives in areas of the home, renewable energy, motoring and mobility and leisure. My responsibility is to assist the home growth team in developing new product offerings that can assist our customers throughout their home journey.
My daily tasks centre around assisting the senior product manager in RACV’s home growth portfolio team. In a given week I may be researching the competition and market, analysing the Australian housing market as well as owning key tasks of proof-of-concept initiatives with our associate or subsidiaries and major projects the team is working on.
The growth team works with a squad of experts and adopts an agile project management approach to deliver high-value projects at speed. As a result of this, I’ve had the opportunity to work alongside marketing, content, insights and UX specialists and have learned a variety of skills and knowledge.
Being a graduate allows me to work with each of the specialists as well as own key tasks throughout the projects to aid in my professional development.
What's your background?
I grew up in the inner northern suburbs of Melbourne and attended local primary and high schools. Upon completing VCE I attended Monash University and studied for a Bachelor of Business/Bachelor of Banking & Finance double degree.
I got my first job just before my 15th birthday at the Melbourne Aquarium and that kickstarted a real enjoyment of working. I worked several jobs throughout my university studies and always worked part-time/full-time hours and as a result, I took my time finishing my degrees, often studying on a part-time basis.
In my final year of university (2021), I was fortunate to be offered a full-time role within a finance team which was a fantastic learning experience. However, I’ve never really been sure about what I wanted to do career-wise and throughout this time I decided that I wanted to pursue a generalist style of the graduate program knowing that this would enable me to get experience in multiple different types of teams and business areas.
I applied for the generalist graduate program at RACV after discovering how diverse the product offering was and was fortunate enough to be offered a position that commenced in January 2022.
I’ve always enjoyed working and working part-time/full-time throughout the university.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Yes, someone with a totally different background could do my job, that’s the beauty of a general graduate program. The key characteristics needed would be good communication and interpersonal skills, being reliable and trustworthy is always very important as it means that you will get more responsibilities within the team and therefore more opportunities to learn and develop.
It’s also very important to be open to working within different teams even if on the surface they may not align with your prior experience.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
The best part of the generalist graduate role is having the opportunity to work alongside so many different specialists and not just working on one specific task the whole time. There have been many opportunities for me to work alongside marketing, content, design, data, project, product and business solutions experts. RACV also has numerous associate businesses/subsidiaries so there are always new and interesting projects being worked on.
What are the limitations of your job?
If you are someone that has an exact career in mind and wants to gain experience in that role only then a general program may not be for you. I believe the general program is best suited for those who might not be sure in the career direction they want to head in or those who want to gain experience in multiple different areas.
3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...
If I could go back in time and give advice to myself when I was starting university I’d say:
Remain open to different career possibilities and don’t only align yourself with what is seen as a typical finance/business job.
Network more and attend different graduate days to get a better insight into what the post-university jobs may look like.