“The worst thing you can do is look back on your life in 5-10 years and wish you had made that move. You don’t want to have any feelings of regret.”
Sometimes, the best thing you can do in life is take a risk.
For HR graduate, Jennifer Schwartz, taking a leap of faith is paying off considerably. She is leaving friends, family and the coastal paradise she calls home to start an exciting new role as the Recruitment & HR Coordinator at L’Oreal in Melbourne.
For Jennifer, South East Queensland doesn’t quite have the same sparkle as the bigger southern cities, despite its natural allure. Sometimes it’s necessary to look further afield for opportunities and for those concerned with career advancement, a move to Sydney or Melbourne could certainly be the ticket.
“When you’re on the Gold Coast, there isn’t a lot of large scale organisations with HR departments that can offer you career development and it’s important for me to find a business that offers advancement opportunities. I don’t want to become complacent,” Jennifer says.
“If I didn’t get the job at L’Oreal, I was going to mosey down to Melbourne anyway to see what would happen.”
Jennifer has always been fascinated with Melbourne and admits to visiting the city seven or eight times a year – so much so, that her colleagues began to tease her, asking why she didn’t just move there permanently.
However, the move means departing from her fantastic job at Dreamworld, where Jennifer was given a great amount of responsibility because of the seasonal nature of employment at the major tourist attraction.
“Working at Dreamworld is really challenging but very rewarding. It has given me great recruitment skills. There aren’t many people who can say they’re the main coordinator of seasonal recruitment, where they hire a couple of hundred staff and a couple of months later do the same thing. It’s sort of my little project I worked on and I have it down to a fine art now.”
She also is leaving a supportive team, with a boss she considers her mentor. Her colleagues have been supportive of her move though and for Jennifer: she knows she needs to jump.
“Deep down I knew I wanted to do it but the rest of me was scared of moving interstate. At the end of the day, you need to do what’s right for you. If it doesn’t work out at least I know I tried. If it’s something you want, you need to give it a go,” she says.
“The third year of University was when I felt there was a lot more going on in the Business School and being a part of the student association made the experience a lot more fun and enjoyable.”
Jennifer is clearly someone who relishes a challenge. She demonstrated this admirable quality while still at University, through her instrumental role in helping to implement the Griffith Business Students Association (GBSA).
“I was the inaugural Gold Coast Vice President for GBSA and being a part of a new club with new ideas made the overall University experience even better. I was in charge of overseeing the Gold Coast campus. I was thrown in the deep end and I actually loved every minute of it,” she says.
“The experience broadened my horizons a little bit more and made me feel like I could jump into things. Before that, I would have just gone to class, but being a part of the club gave me initiative and direction to see what I wanted to do.”
She has also made lifelong friends within the student association, one of whom joined her in the move to Melbourne.
“I’m looking forward to exploring the culture down here. It’s a little different to the Gold Coast. I’m looking forward to watching AFL games and experiencing everything Melbourne has to offer,” she says.
Prior to commencing in the role she admits while it’s extremely nerve wracking, she acknowledges this is a new, exciting chapter in her life. Now in her third week with L’Oreal she knows she has made the right choice in relocating and is relishing in the challenges and responsibilities of working within such a great organization and the perks that come with working within the luxury division.
We wish Jennifer the best of luck with the move and her exciting new job!
Jennifer’s Top Tips:
- Join a student association while at University.
- Start networking with your fellow students. You never know where you might meet up in the future.
- Go with your gut feeling.
Griffith University Careers and Employment Service 