What's your job about?
The BMD Group is a civil construction company that focuses on delivering major civil infrastructure across Australia and overseas. I’m responsible for looking after corporate staff nationally in the BMD group in relation to general HR functions including end-to-end recruitment, onboarding, drawing contracts, HR systems implementations and general HR administration.
What are YOU exactly doing?
I have a generalist HR role within BMD with a focus on looking after the corporate team nationally. This involves hiring staff members with degrees/experience in systems, marketing, it, fleet, proposals, finance, and travel etc to work for the BMD Group in our corporate teams.
I look after the entire employee experience for corporate staff from identifying talent needs, finding the right people to fill these talent needs and then the whole onboarding experience (interviewing, offers, reference checks, contracts, and inductions) to offboarding employees (exit interviews and performance discussions) and everything HR related in between.
When I’m not actively recruiting, I’m conducting HR administration for the business or working with our National Indigenous Program Manager by attending industry events and facilitating presentations.
What's your background?
I grew up in North Queensland in a small regional country town in the Whitsundays. Early on I decided that I wanted to pursue further education in business management and for me the way to do this was to move to Brisbane by myself and leave my full-time job to attend the University of Queensland.
In 2019, I started a Bachelor of Business Management majoring in Human Resources and Marketing at the University of Queensland. During this time, I explored my new home and concentrated on my studies. In my final year, my focus shifted where improving my employability was now important. To make myself more employable, I got involved in a mentorship program run by the university. In this program, I connected with an experienced HR Professional who taught me how to build my personal brand on LinkedIn to become more employable.
By doing this I was approached by my current boss on LinkedIn about a graduate HR position at the BMD Group. So, I ended up submitting my final assessment of my degree on a Friday and started my job at BMD that next Monday. It’s now been 1.5 years that I have worked with the BMD Group.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
If someone wanted to do the same job as me, you will need to have completed a Bachelor of Business with a major in Human Resources. Having the degree will ensure you get to partake any graduate programs with potential employers. As someone who now interviews candidates for positions at BMD, having a degree will help you land an interview but, having relevant experience and strong soft skills will help your chances of landing the job.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
I love that I’m in a unique position where I get to fully understand the business I work in. I get to learn the history of the business and understand the company’s vision and then try and embed that vision into new employees.
In my role, I get to work with heads of departments, where I learn how they service the business and help them build their teams. Being in the construction industry, I get to be involved in networking events that represent the BMD Group, as well as having opportunities to give back by doing presentations in universities and with not-for-profit businesses.
What are the limitations of your job?
Limitations in my role come with working in HR. It can be difficult to recruit the right talent for managers which leads to a long period of time where managers have teams that are under resourced and are under the pump. I have found having strong relationships with these managers and understanding how they service the business motivates you to work harder in this space as you want to make their work lives easier.
Additionally, being in HR I can be involved in uncomfortable conversations but luckily for me I have support around me to facilitate these conversations confidently.
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