Inaugural Young Professionals Half Day Conference a success

On Friday 12 August, ACS Victoria held the inaugural Young Professionals Half Day Conference at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre, South Wharf.

With more than 350 in attendance, the conference was a chance for students and young IT professionals to hear from three seasoned speakers who provided tips, tricks and advice on how they can maximise their future career opportunities and be the best professional in technology they can be.

Welcoming attendees in the first session was Dr Shanton Chang, Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne. Shanton addressed workplace culture and the different communication styles within a professional environment that can be adopted. A presentation filled with great humour, Shanton made a favourable impression and yet provided individuals with a strong insight into the challenges and pitfalls of the Australian workplace culture.

With a hard act to follow, Corrinne Armour, renown author, took to the stage and delivered an empowering session on Fearless Leadership.  Corrinne’s presentation communicated to the audience the 12 common leadership derailers and how they impact personal leadership styles. In addition, Corrinne spoke on how intentions come from our motivations and that it takes curiosity, courage and compassion to be a fearless leader.

After a morning tea break and networking, it was time for our final speaker Naren Chellapah, Head Career Coach at AECIS, to provide attendees with an interactive LinkedIn masterclass to demonstrate how to use best use LinkedIn to unearth employment opportunities. Naren used real examples of current LinkedIn users to reveal to the audience how they can optimise their LinkedIn account and produce high quality, key word optimised career summaries.

At the end of the three sessions, a prize was given away to the most active Twitter user for the day. Congratulations to Ashish Mathur who walked away with a $50 Coles/Myer Gift card.

ACS Victoria would like to thank our speakers for participating in the half day conference and everyone who attended. We look forward to the next Young Professionals Half Day Conference which we are hoping to run later on this year.