At only 26 years of age, Stephanie Gonzales has gone from student, to intern, to Recruitment Advisor; all at UTS.
She first came to the university as a Bachelor of Business student in 2007, where she majored in human resource management and sub-majored in management consulting and public relations. Thanks to internal and external opportunities, Gonzales soon found her calling – helping young people achieve their dreams.
Today, she continues to do that, delivering career-related workshops, reviewing resumes and offering advisory consultations for students through the UTS Careers Service drop-in service.
“My role is to cultivate and enhance the employability of students at UTS,” Gonzales explains. “I provide support for those students who are looking for work or needing career direction.
“On any given day I could meet with a mature-age student, a PhD student, international student, or someone who is straight out of high school, so there is a lot of diversity there, and the thing I enjoy the most is being able to help them, even in a small way.”
Gonzales is the first to admit, however, that career development wasn’t an area she envisioned working in when she started her degree. Five years after her first internship with the UTS Careers Service, and other full-time roles in the banking industry, Gonzales made her way back to UTS.
That first internship, explains Gonzales, was a three-month stint as a resume reviewer with the UTS Careers Service. She then secured a second internship in the Human Resources Unit.
“Initially it was just another three-month internship, where I was a Human Resources Administration Assistant, and then they extended that and I went into the role of Human Resources Officer.
“I enjoyed both internships. They were in different areas of human resources, so I got great insight into my different career options. And, being such a large organisation you get to meet lots of different people.”
After graduating from UTS in 2011, Gonzales went on to secure full-time employment with Macquarie Bank and later, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management Australia.
“When I was working in recruitment at both Macquarie Bank and Morgan Stanley, I worked mainly with new graduates and students. I enjoyed that aspect the most, and that was actually what prompted me to come back to UTS and work in the Careers Service,” she says.
“UTS is very forward-thinking, which I like, and it’s culturally diverse; it’s a very inclusive environment.”
When asked where she sees herself in five years, the self-confessed “sushi enthusiast” and “keen traveller” says, “I would really love to stay in the university environment, and working with university students and graduates. It’s where I want to be.”
- Stephanie Gonzales is a Recruitment Advisor at UTS; it’s a role that sees her helping mature-age, PhD and international students as well as those straight out of high school
- She first became interested in career development after a three-month internship as a resume reviewer with the UTS Careers Service