Earthcheck Pty Ltd.

Placement organization

Name of organization: Earthcheck Pty Ltd.
Town/city: Brisbane
Country: Australië

Student

Name of student: Anina Moergenthaler
Website: http://www.ec3global.com
Name of student: Anina Moergenthaler
Specialist area: ITMC
Placement period: 2012-2013

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Consultancy
Organization’s activities: Certification, Benchmarking, Tourism Development, Planning & Policy, Sustainable Business development.
Target group of the organization: Hotel and travel industry
Company culture: In general, there is a very friendly, open and respectful atmosphere in the office; it’s mostly an open-plan office and everybody is happy to help when you ask them and you’ll probably have a little chat once in a while with Stewart, CEO, in the kitchen when getting coffee. So I’d describe it as a rather flat level of hierarchy. The position as a student depends a bit on your attitude and your commitment.
Number of employees: 30
Dress code: casual-business from Monday till Thursday. Casual on Friday.
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? There are several departments such as Relationship Management, Consulting&Training, IT&Administration, Marketing&Sales. RM and Consulting are the two areas that you’ll be part of for 3 months each
Brief description of your daily activities: RM (Benchmarking): preparing data submission, clarification emails and benchmarking assessment reports; once in a while you’ll get other tasks on the side but they are always different
Consulting: Helping with different projects (depending on the project you might help with researching & analyzing data, creating prospectuses, preparing presentations, writing proposals).

Brief description of your company assignment: My company assignment was writing a case study on South Bank Corporation and their sustainability efforts & achievements over the last few years.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: First you’ll be in contact with Melinda. She’ll help you with everything that has to be prepared prior to your arrival in Australia. Melinda is also the supervisor in RM and Mark Olsen will be your supervisor in Consulting.
Connection with study program: Relevant

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? RM is relatively routine work. You’ll prepare benchmarking reports and do some other tasks on the side. Don’t be afraid to ask anybody for help or advice, especially at the beginning because it seems a little overwhelming at the start of it. For consulting it’s important to be pro-active and resilient in terms of time pressure. There are always deadlines that to be kept or you might get tasks that need to be done asap. Consulting is very close to the curriculum of ITMC. You might do things comparable to what had to be done for the DA & (pre-)feasibility study and it’s great to see how al of this works in reality and not just in theory. Consulting does Destination Management & Strategic Plans, Feasibility studies other things for clients all around Australia and world-wide.
Additional company requirements for this placement? Word, Excel and powerpoint are the most important once. But even if you’re not extremely good with it you’ll learn while doing it.
English: Advanced
Spanish:
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages:

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? For the first two months I was living with a colleague, but in a suburb quite far out (Salisbury). I wouldn’t really recommend living that far out in the suburbs because public transport is quite expensive and it took me about 45 mins by car/train to get to work. Later I found another share house in New Farm through a friend. I’d suggest to first book a hostel and once you’ve arrived in Brisbane go on gumtree.com.au to find a place that’s relatively close to the CBD.
How did you go to work every day? When I lived in Salisbury, most of the time I was able to go by car with my colleague but sometimes we had to take the train. Once I lived in New Farm I walked (approx. 40 mins) or took the bike (15-20 mins) when the weather was ok. On rainy days I took the bus (15 mins).

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? Yes, Training and Research (subclass 402) visa
Do you need a work permit? No
How did you arrange the necessary documents: The company will assist you with it
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? 2 to 3 months
Did you need certain vaccinations? No

Language course

Did you take a language course before you started your placement? No
Would you recommend to have a language course prior to this placement? n/a

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 1500,00
Accommodation (monthly): € 400,00 although I was quite lucky because my house in new farm was really cheap. You can easily pay 500-600 a month
Local transport (monthly): € 50,00
General costs of living (monthly): € 200,00 – 300,00
Costs of visa: 250,00 (AUD 315,00)
Costs of work permit: € n/a
What did the company pay for/to you? € Nothing

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture? I did not.
Did the culture of the country influence your performance during the placement in any way? I don’t think EC3 Global has a predominant Australian culture in the office as it’s a very international atmosphere and people come from all over the world. Also personally I don’t think that the differences between Australian/European culture are very big and it’s easy to settle in.

Future students on placement

My telephone number:
My e-mail address: 110004@edu.nhtv.nl

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Do’s
Camping on Moreton Island including bonfire at the beach
Coffee at Three Monkeys Café
Aussie Barbie
Diving course (! If you don’t have a diving license yet)
Show initiative
Ask if you can do you DA within the framework of a consulting project
& Don’ts
Live too far out in the suburbs
Getting frustrated when it rains more than you think it should
Not taking some long-sleeve clothes with you because you think it’s Australia and it must be warm all the time

Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: Sunshine/Gold Coast & Hinterland, Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, Moreton Island South Bank, National Parks around Brisbane, South Bank for a coffee and lazy weekend afternoon West End Markets…there are quite some things to do in Brisbane (not everybody agrees on that) but you have to look for them 😉

Media

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