Career Change – The Applicant and The Trainer

The Applicant

Name: Danielle Sweeney

Age: 40s

Present position: Art therapist

Skills: Bachelor of Arts in Visual Arts, Masters in Psychotherapy/Art Therapy, University of Western Sydney. Studying a Certificate II in Business at Sarina Russo Institute, Gold Coast.

Job sought: Specialist employment consultant, advocate for people with disabilities, life coach.

Dream job: I had time off after children. I'm an artist and did some exhibiting and worked on a book but now I need to forge forward and recreate a new career. My passion is to work with people and be at the front line of working with them. In the past I've passed a lot of work on to someone else to do in the role of administration or business. But when you need to be independent you need to do this yourself.

I'm drawn to working closely with people with disabilities and mental illness and what's coming my way is positions as an employment consultant. I'd like to progress from that to become a trainer.

This course is giving me confidence and business skills I can translate to real jobs.

My gift isn't in administration skills, but to do just about anything you need to have them.

The Trainer

Name: Maria Murphy

Position: Business trainer, Sarina Russo Institute, Gold Coast.

Experience: Seventeen years in training and education. Diploma of Management, Certificate IV in Business, Training and Assessment qualifications.  Been with Sarina Russo for 18 months.

The course options: Entry level Certificate II in Business, five-week fulltime course. Leads into Certificate III Business Traineeship, then Diploma in Business Administration.

Skill Tips: This course is typically for school leavers, long-term unemployed and people returning to work.  People are commonly using the course to get into the healthcare industry and large organisations at business level.

Danielle has a huge art background and has worked in the psychiatric field but she didn't have the fundamental basic business skills to start working on other opportunities. We teach a lot of life skills here, occupational health and safety, communication, teamwork, the use of business technology, code of conduct and expected behaviours.  Whether it takes them into a place of employment or not, this course has been built to help each student's growth, personally and professionally.