Bond University is once again Australia’s top-ranked university for producing graduates that employers want to hire.
The Federal Government’s recently-released 2019 Employer Satisfaction Survey placed Bond as number one in Australia for the second successive year.
Bond graduates received a 94.6 per cent overall satisfaction score from employers, with their foundation, collaborative and technical skills rating over 96 per cent.
Bond beat out theological college the University of Divinity, the Australian Catholic University, and the University of Wollongong to take out the top spot across the 41 universities surveyed.
Former Bond student Yam Hon Yip (Hunter), who graduated last year with his Master of Construction Practice (Professional), interned at Coral Homes in Varsity Lakes before being taken on in a full-time role by the home building company.
He said he was loving the collegial atmosphere at Coral Homes, adding that Bond’s industry links and ability to secure him an internship had helped him when it came time to enter the workforce.
“It was really good, they (Bond) tried their best to find me internship opportunities, which really helped me find an actual job when I graduated.”
Coral Homes’ national systems development manager Chris Haines said about 17 interns from Bond had come through the company’s doors in the past few years.
“We want to connect with the new up-and-comers in the industry, and Bond have a lot of choice in that regard, we’ve got some great people coming out of Bond, and they come with new and exciting ideas.”
Mr Haines said Hunter had been “integral” in the ongoing rollout of the company’s Building Information Modelling Project.
“He originally came on to help us with our Building Information Modelling Project, he’s obviously shone in his role here at Coral and has continued to work with the BIM, which is continuing to evolve, and we hope to have it fully operational by the end of the year.”
Kirsty Mitchell, Director of Bond University’s Career Development Centre, said employers were seeing the benefits of Bond’s investment in employability development for every student.
“All of our undergraduate students are required to do Beyond Bond, our employability development program,” Ms Mitchell said.
“It’s a compulsory activity before you graduate and it’s not just one single thing -- it’s a continued program of diversity of activity, reflection, repeat.
“We’ve been doing that for six years and it’s something no-one else in the sector is doing.”
Ms Mitchell said employers routinely sought out Bond graduates “because they’re the right fit, the right culture.
“They take our interns, they take our graduates, they see us as a gold standard for talent.
“What Beyond Bond does is it provides students with this range of opportunities to explore and experiment, and develop skills and confidence, not just academically but professionally.
“And they can turn that into real benefits for an employer very quickly, once they start.”
Overall satisfaction rankings ranged from Bond’s 94.6 per cent down to 76 per cent, using results combined from the 2017, 2018 and 2019 surveys.
The survey canvased employer satisfaction at graduates’ abilities across a range of skill indicators including general literacy, numeracy and communication, teamwork and interpersonal skills, application of professional and technical knowledge and standards, and the ability to perform and innovate in the workplace.
The 2019 Employer Satisfaction Survey was made up of almost 4700 supervisor responses.