I am 17 years old, studying Year 11 at Saint Ignatius College. I’m a keen basketball player, currently playing in the Bellarine Storm representative team, along with a domestic team on Monday nights. During school holidays, I love camping along the Murray River or anywhere near a beach. I am happiest when I am outdoors adventuring and exploring when and where I can. I love laying on the beach in summer and finding a jetty to jump off. I also work part-time at Guzman Y Gomez and make a mean burrito.
BUILDING CAREERS GEELONG SITE TOUR
I first came across Lyons Construction during the Building Careers Geelong Site Tour, which Lyons Construction hosts in collaboration with GRLLEN, Hamlan Homes, Geelong Built and The Gordon. Saint Ignatius along with other schools in the Geelong region attended two job sites; a commercial site – Clifton Springs Primary School and residential site – town houses in Belmont.
Throughout the day we had many people talking to us about what they do, what their roles are and how things work on their sites. The team that spoke to us were great, informing us about their own career pathways, assisting us on getting some ideas of what industries we could pursue and answering direct questions. We also watched a bricklaying demonstration by Caruso Bricklaying.
Here, I met Rhianna Costin from Lyons Construction. Rhianna was on the Clifton Springs site at the time of the Schools site tour, getting marketing content for the Lyons Construction. I was very interested in what Rhi was doing on the site tour, seeing as I wasn’t as interested in pursuing a career as a tradesperson myself. I went to the site tour a little unsure as to what I would personally get out of it. My peers were all there looking at the specific trades. whilst I was thinking outside of the box, seeing what other options there could be.
I approached Rhi and a representative at GRLLEN about a potential SWL (Structured Workplace Learning) placement in Marketing at Lyons Construction and luckily, I was able to find myself there for five weeks.
SCHOOL AND VET
I am currently in my second semester of year 11 studying VCE Vocational Major. Whilst I am planning to finish Year 12, I am keen to undertake some work in the Marketing industry during and after my school studies. Via my VET course, I am halfway through my Certificate III in Business; I do this on a Wednesday afternoon. Instead of going to The Gordon and completing my course onsite, I do the course through Integrity College, which is all online through Microsoft teams. After completing my Business course, I am hoping to start another VET course in Marketing in the near future.
MY TIME AT LYONS CONSTRUCTION
In total, I spent five days at Lyons Construction, every Thursday for five weeks. I highly enjoyed my time at Lyons where I was shadowing Rhi, the Marketing and Communications Manager.
I was able to see a variety of different things during my time here. We visited sites most weeks, seeing and capturing content of the projects. It was amazing to see the progress week to week. Whilst watching and learning from Rhi, I learnt a lot about the different marketing functions, marketing insights and trends. I was able to meet the wider team at Lyons, understanding what they do and what their roles are. I found it really interesting being able to see the variety of jobs around the industry and all the opportunities there are available… there is far more that goes on behind the scenes than meets the eye.
WHAT NEXT?
In the short term, after my work placement has finished at Lyons Construction, I was hoping to find some more work placement at a Real Estate agency (hello real estate agents!!) hoping to be involved in marketing. I like to keep myself busy and I think learning a new industry will be really insightful. In the long term, I am hoping to stay in the marketing industry. During my time with Rhianna, I have been enjoying seeing what she has been doing and the variety of tasks she does in her role.
Today was my last day of placement at Lyons. Working alongside Rhi was a blast. She taught me so much about the marketing industry, both during her time at Lyons Construction but also previously in agency roles, and it was great to see what she does for her job and what the industry is like.
In year 12, I am hoping that I can get involved in a marketing agency to learn about working agency-side, hopefully through that I can see all different aspects and different areas of marketing.
