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Edwina Mistry
Manukau Institute of Technology (MIT) takes pride in producing graduates who are ready to make a meaningful contribution in the workplace from Day One.
Getting people into great jobs is our purpose.
MIT’s Faculty of Business and IT walks the talk.
Work Placement Programme
We provided work experience opportunities for 435 students last year with close to three-quarters of these placements leading to employment.
Three hundred and fifty companies took part in our work placements programme including Dimension Data, Vegaworks, Paperplus, Good TV.
Major players like Fisher and Paykel and Vodafone have recently signed partnership agreements to work with MIT students each semester for the Contact Centre course.
High work ethics
Lyndal Stewart, CEO of Business Mechanix, a company developing software for the education sector is a big fan of students from MIT.
“Their work ethic makes a big difference. They also have passion, fire and real focus for the area they want to work in. Their skills are very current. We love working with them,” she said.
Ms Stewart said that MIT students are a great fit with the culture of her company.
“They can start straight away. We don’t have to change our business practices to accommodate them. They are willing to socialise. They work in well with the Kiwi way of doing business,” she said.
Soft Skill development
That is no accident. We put a lot of emphasis on the ‘soft skills’ that make a candidate work ready by running on-campus programmes like ‘Stand Out in a Crowd’ and ‘Passport to Success’ that have been designed in partnership with industry to give our graduates an edge in the job market.
It is all a part of preparing our students for the real-world while they are studying.
They prepare a professional CV and go through an interview process to get a placement.
An Intern’s experience
Lovepreet Verma is studying towards a Graduate Diploma while working at Business Mechanix.
“We should look for opportunities, grab them and not let them go. At the moment, I am grateful to be studying and getting industry experience as well,” the 20-year-old man, who started with the company as an intern, said
One of the reasons why Lovepreet ‘hit the ground running’ at Business Mechanix was that he was a part of the team that won the Manukau Innovation Challenge run by Panuku and Auckland Council.
South Auckland issues
Entrants had to come up with solutions for issues facing South Auckland and their pitch for a car pool app reducing congestion on the roads took first place.
It’s this sort of creative thinking applied to practical challenges that we encourage.
A work placement through MIT can be a great starting place in a competitive job market. To give you an idea about how sought after some positions are, recently Business Mechanix advertised a job and received more than 150 applications.
Every year, 16,000 students choose to study at MIT, which is one of the country’s largest providers of technical, vocational and professional education.
Established in 1970, the institute now has nine campuses across the greater Auckland region.
MIT’s stated purpose is ‘to get people into great jobs.’
Last year, 79% of graduates went into employment or further study.
For further information, please email facultyofbusinessandIT@manukau.ac.nz
Edwina Mistry is Industry and Community Engagement Manager at Manukau Institute of Technology based in Manukau. MIT is the Sponsor of the ‘Business Excellence in International Trade with India Category,’ of the Tenth Indian Newslink Indian Business Awards 2017. This is the only Category that is open to all businesses registered in New Zealand and trading with India, selling a product or a service, and enrolling international students from India. Entries to the Awards programme close on August 31, 2017. For more information, rules and regulations and downloading entry forms, please visit www.inliba.com or write to editor@indiannewslink.co.nz
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Photo :
Lindal Stewart with MIT students
