Shakaya, Cindy and Nor, participants in Mambourin’s School Leaver Employment Support (SLES) program, have been working towards their goal of gaining employment – and all their hard work has paid off! Here’s how they gained employment, in their own words.

Shakaya, Cindy and Nor celebrate with some cake

Weeks ago we were doing pathway meetings with Brittany. We would apply for jobs together and go over interviewing techniques. Brittany asked me, Nor and Cindy if we would be interested in applying for a role at Sendable and showed us what they do. We liked it, so we asked Brittany to send our resumes over. Well, guess what? We got the interview.

On 8 November, Nor, Cindy and I went to a job interview at Sendable. We went there in the morning just before morning tea. We drove there with Brittany since it was too hot to walk there.

When we arrived at Sendable, we met with the managing supervisor named Daniel, he introduced himself and explained what the company entails. He gave us a brief introduction on the tasks and jobs that the company produces. They use a lot more technology in their warehouse, RFI scanners etc. It was quite interesting to see the difference in warehouses.

During the job interviews, he asked simple questions but gave a lot of detail. He allowed us to take time in answering questions as we were all nervous. We were all able to choose what days and hours suited us best to work. We all gave answers that showed the employer that we understood the questions suited to our experiences.

One question he asked me that stuck out to me was ‘Why do you want to stay in warehousing?’ I told him that I had skills from my previous experience working at Mambourin and I wanted to broaden my knowledge and gain new skills.

Cindy said, “A question that stuck out to me was ‘How can you handle a stressful situation?’ I said that I would take a deep breath and figure out a solution to the problem.”

We all did very well in answering the questions and I think the mock interviews with Brittany the weeks before, really helped us.

On 21 November, each of us got a text message from Sendable saying that we got the job and had to complete some paper work to be able to start our first shift. Later on we were told by Brittany that we would be working together so that we would feel more comfortable with people we already know. All of us were very excited and happy to find out that we have started a new pathway and are beginning our future careers.

We are very glad that we got given this opportunity to start working and we are extremely thankful for Ashleigh, Brittany and Nat (SLES mentors) for telling us about the job opportunity and how they thought we were ready for employment.

To find out more about SLES or any of our other choices contact one of our friendly team members on 9731 9200 or email us at hello@mambourin.org