News

Imagine Student On The Path To Her Dream Career

09 November 18

Imagine Education business retail student, Ashley Fisher, is well on her way to her dream career, and the 20-year-old couldn’t be more excited.

Ashley’s just received the call that she “aced” her interview at Target and has been selected for a customer service role at their Robina store.

“When I got the call I was that excited!” Ashley exclaims. “I almost wanted to cry! I was over the moon!”

Her excitement is contagious and very understandable given that this is the bright and bubbly 20-year-old’s first job. After moving to the Gold Coast from Toowoomba with her fiancé for a fresh start, she was determined to find a job, but to her dismay, found she could not get a foot in the door.

Then this month Ashley’s job provider, HELP, sent her resume into Target.

“HELP have been absolutely amazing. Then I had a call from Target saying they wanted to interview me, and I was so nervous! But I went in there and I aced it!”
The new job couldn’t have come at a better time for Ashley who has been part of the inaugural student intake for Imagine Education’s new offering to domestic students, Certificate III in Business (Retail Specialisation).

The course teaches students valuable retail skills such as merchandising, customer service and building customer relationships, work health and safety, and selling to the retail customer. Another important aspect of the course is giving individuals the tools to become confident job seekers. Trainers encourage the students to go out, search and apply for jobs and help them with any aspect of the job seeking process they may be unconfident in.

The course covers many of the key areas in Ashley’s new job, and she is excited to start putting her new skills to use in the real world.

“This course has helped me so much with customer service, and now that I’m going to be doing a customer service based role, I’ll be able to utilise all the skills I have learnt!”

In fact Ashley says her training has already been put to good use in her interview, helping her to confidently talk through a tricky scenario posed by the hiring manager.

“The interviewer asked me how I would react in a scenario with an angry customer. I thought to myself, ‘we’ve covered this in class’. I responded in the way that my trainer had taught us to deal with that situation, and the hiring manager just looked at me and said, ‘that’s a top answer! Where did you learn that?’ It was pretty awesome because I was thinking ‘I learnt that in my course!’”

Tania Halbert-Brown is Ashley’s trainer and is also one of Imagine Education’s highly-skilled Faculty of Business trainers.  Ashley can’t talk more highly of her.
“Tania is an amazing trainer! I love her she is the very best! She makes everything so much fun and so interesting. I was so nervous coming into this course, but she has made me so comfortable and I’m learning so many new skills from her and having fun doing it!”

Tania herself could not be more proud of Ashley and the way she has watched her confidence build throughout the course duration saying, “this course is great for students like Ashley as it helps to build their confidence and give them the skills to get back in the workforce. For Ashley to go for the position at Target and be the successful applicant shows that the course has given her the new-found confidence to apply for jobs again, something that a lot of our students need help with when they first start with us.  I just know with Ashley’s bubbly personality and her new skillset that she will be a great success.”

A new job and qualification is just the beginning for Ashley, who is already looking towards her future goals.

“Getting this job has opened me up to so many opportunities! I’ve always wanted to be a manager at Target, I love it there! I talked to the hiring manager about the opportunities available to their employees, and he asked me what I was looking for in the long term. I told him “My goal is to be a manager!”

And with her determined attitude and her optimistic and happy personality, Ashley Fisher will definitely make her career dreams come true.

To find out more about Imagine Education’s Certificate III in Business (Retail Specilisation) click here