| Telstra

Telstra Certitude Enterprise Scholarship

Business

The Team

There were approximately ten people in the team for most of my time there, about half of whom were current or previous UTS Scholarship recipients, making adapting to this new environment and team significantly easier and more comfortable, knowing that other teammates had previously gone through the same process.

Due to recent structural changes and a newly appointed team leader causing onboarding and training processes to be delayed, I actively sought out senior team members to learn how to do the types of work involved sooner.

Trainers

My training was primarily conducted by the previous UTS Scholarship recipients in the team. I took this opportunity to devlop a strong connection with them, as I came to seek their advice and guidance beyond the initial training.

The Application

Primary Application Reason

One part of my degree is the Diploma in Information Technology Professional Practice. This required me to complete a full-time placement of 9-12 months, and the Telstra Certitude Enterprise Scholarship was an opportunity to meet this requirement that I saw as essential, for the chance to gain industry experience in Australia's largest telecommunications company.

Application Process

The application process began with a form requiring assurance of a minimum WAM of 65+ to be achieved and maintained throughout the scholarship, followed by questions on personal motivations, attitudes, and interests. After review by Telstra's hiring team, I was shortlisted for a virtual interview with situational and behavioural questions. The interviewer’s feedback was then sent to the UTS scholarship board for final review, leading to an offer from the UTS Scholarships team.

Drive to be Selected

I actively followed up with my interviewer through phone calls and messages in the period between the interview being completed and the offer being made, which was a potential factor in having successfully received this offer, as it was demonstrative of both my personal drive and commitment.

The Role

This role involved providing business support to external enterprises. Companies using Telstra services raised support tickets via Salesforce, which our team addressed. Requests included generating service usage reports, fund transfers, managing new connections, modifications, cancellations, and intermediary submissions for wideband feasibility assessments based on connection types and bandwidth needs. Additionally, I prepared customer requests to make them easier for other Telstra teams to resolve when beyond our team's scope.

The team was extremely productive in fulfilling our role. This was demonstrated by maintaining less than 10 unpicked Salesforce case requests in the backlog for the majority of the year. This was a significant improvement compared to previous years, which often saw the backlog filled with as many as 50+ unpicked cases.

Notable Achievements

I was one of three students to have received this scholarship in 2023, and one of approximately 80 students within the faculties of Engineering and IT at UTS, to receive a scholarship in 2023. Therefore, of the approximately 10,000+ students in this faculty, I placed in the top 1% of students at UTS that year.

Being one of three recipients of a prestigious scholarship that offers one whole year of full-time work experience as a university student, which has been running annually at UTS for multiple years, remains as one of my proudest and most notable achievements during university.