Here’s a transcript of our chat with Kanwal, cleaned up for clarity and ease-of-reading.
I am originally from Pakistan. I came to Australia as an international student in 2015. I did two masters. The first one was in project management from Sydney Uni and then I did an MBA majoring in professional accounting.
My current role is the perfect blend of what I've studied, and I think I'm very fortunate in that space because I work as a program manager in finance, so that really brings in my project management and accounting background together. I'm very grateful for that. I run very large transformational programs for New South Wales Ministry of Health at the moment.
So the New South Wales Ministry of Health is the head office for New South Wales Health. So we are the largest cluster in government in New South Wales. We have a staff count around 150-160,000. It's quite a large organisation with 32 “health entities” as we call them, sitting under the cluster with the ministry being the head office.
My role as a program manager is to run a very large piece of work, which is called the cash transformation program, which at one point had eight concurrent projects running simultaneously.
So my role is, from a governance point of view, to make sure all the projects are well interlinked, the dependencies are matched, looking at resources, looking at finances, looking at budgets.
And I think a critical part of my role is benefits management. So the benefits that we commit to when we signed off on our business case. So the cost benefit analysis to ensure that those benefits are either realised or will be realised. So I track those very closely as a part of my role.
My role is also to make sure that the governance is well structured and followed through, which means timely escalations of issues and risks as required, making sure our stakeholders are well informed. We do have a dedicated team of change and communications as well.
So just making sure the different parts of the programs are well interlinked and running in cohesion.
We have dedicated project managers for each of those projects, which is not me. I am more at the program level as a program manager.
So my job is really to make sure those interdependencies between the projects are well defined, there are timely escalations if there's any issues with risk, which could impact one project and then another, because projects can be on a critical path.
So just making sure a program is running smoothly is really my responsibility.
Yes, I do. I do work in finance. And the program that we're running has a huge human element to it because it's transformation. So what transformation means is bringing change to an organisation, changing the way you work and the way you use systems and in the way you use processes. There's a huge human element to what I do, which is why we have a dedicated team of change managers working on the program as well.
My program is run in a very agile fashion. For those who don't understand, agile is basically you break down your work into smaller tasks or chunks of tasks into a sprint.
So the program runs into a two week sprint or fortnightly sprint. I dip in and out of the different projects, sprint meetings to make sure that if one project has an issue or risk coming up, I need to be able to flag it to the other project managers.
We have specific meetings for specific purposes. So we have daily standups. Stand ups are 15 minutes, but we know what everyone else is doing, we know who to go to, so it brings a lot of visibility as well. It's like a short and sweet meeting in the mornings.
We still have a change of communications meetings. I run quarterly risk meetings for the whole program, which are very strategic.
Every six months, I write a board report for the executives, which is quite detailed and it's really tracking the KPIs that we put for the program. So I do my board report every six months or so and give an update to the strategic board as well. And the board is a partnership between the three partners working together. So it's the New South Wales Health, New South Wales Treasury (who provides us the funding) and our banking partner.
Then we have a monthly steering committee, which is also attended by our executive directors. So we've got executive directors from health, from our banking partner, and treasury.
So I'm pretty much locked in meetings all day. But that's what Agile is like, because you've got a lot of sprint planning, sprint reviews and they're very quick.
So I came as an international student, as I mentioned, I was doing my first master's in project management from Sydney University, which is what I always wanted to do. So I think I was always very clear on what I wanted in my professional journey and career. And then I had to do a second master's, which was an MBA in professional accounting, just for the permanent residency reasons, because I applied for my PR on the basis of accounting.
I got lucky in the sense that because my bachelor's was in economics, I actually got to do the MBA in one year because I'd already studied some subjects, so I got some exemptions.
When I was in my last semester of my MBA, I remember applying for roles online, and the first question most Australian companies would ask at the time was, “Are you a permanent resident?” or “What's your residency status?" The second I would say, “I'm not a PR holder,” my application would drop through. And that's one of the first screening questions. So you actually can't even apply.
Then in my last semester, after a lot of failed attempts, I eventually tried to use LinkedIn as a tool. And I started messaging people on LinkedIn relentlessly. And out of a hundred odd people that I messaged, one person replied and I met him for coffee.
It turned out that on my LinkedIn, there was one volunteer experience that kind of stood out for him, which was I was a social media manager for a society at Sydney Uni. That stood out for him because he wanted someone to help him have a social media presence for his company and I wanted experience.
So this person actually ran a company specialising in government programs, projects, and portfolios. And that was perfect for me because I wanted experience in project management. So it was the perfect match.
So I started working two days a week on probation for three months until I finished my degree and that gave him a chance to understand me better and a chance to understand him better.
And that was it. I was offered a role when I finished uni and I started working as a consultant while I was studying, which I'm very fortunate to be working as a consultant and with government on a student visa, which never happens.
I'm very grateful for the opportunities that my first employer gave me, and that's how I started working professionally.
I started looking for people who were in the project management industry. I used to go to a lot of meetups and networking events. And so this particular person actually came to the university as a guest speaker once.
So I knew he was someone who was very well known in the project management industry. I very briefly spoke to him, but I remember I was very shy back then as a student to come forward.
But I started targeting people who were in the project management industry. I looked for people in senior positions or people who were owners of consulting companies, because small businesses, I feel, give more chance.
They're more open to having arrangements like my arrangement. Because larger organisations have a lot of red tape or HR rules to go through, my advice to international students or for someone who's starting to find a job would be to actually target smaller companies.
Not only would you learn a lot faster because you're a small team and you're under the wings of very senior, very well respected people, but also I feel the growth opportunities are a lot higher, because they will really focus on you and it will be a very steep learning curve.
I stayed for two and a half years as a consultant. I learned so much just being under his umbrella because he's a very senior person. He has years and years of experience and he was really mentoring me and really shaping and grooming me during that time I was under his wing, teaching me so much on a daily basis, I'd say hourly basis, if anything.
That really helped me. And it was I think it helped me accelerate my career.
Because I was allowed to work 20 hours a week, I was only working two days a week with him. So I was still within the limits of my legal requirements.
And he is someone who really appreciates people, because I feel like there's always something new and something different that an international student from a very different background would have to offer.
So I got very lucky in that sense. I was working with someone really valued and appreciated my point of view as well.
Yeah. So I've always been in the public sector, as I mentioned, I've worked with different departments in New South Wales, so Department of Planning, Environment, Office of Environment and Heritage.
I came to Health as a consultant through him. And then I was eventually offered a role in Health and I stayed back.
It was really interesting. So I used to work as a consultant for New South Wales Health. I actually got an offer from EY and I went to my then boss at Health and said,”Until when do you need me, because I've got an offer. I need to tell them when I can start” and so on.
And he said, “You're not going anywhere.” And I was like, “What do you mean?” Because there was no role for me. There was no project manager role at that time in finance.
And so he actually created my role for me. So the role was created for me. I was recruited into that role and yeah, and that was it. I stayed back and I've now been in Health for five years.
Yes. I was working with them for over a year as a consultant before they offered me a job and I moved to Health.
Not the public sector, no, because public sector, you can't apply directly, as I said, on an international student visa. You have to be a permanent resident.
We do get a lot of graduates who come into the public sector, but they're all residents in Australia.
I have helped a lot of international students get jobs in Australia, though, but they're more in the private sector, because the private sector is a lot more lenient with the visa requirements.
Yeah, definitely. I came as an international student so that was my student visa, and I had to study for two and a half years because the requirement to get a temporary work visa in Australia is two years of postgrad.
So my first degree was a year and a half, the project management one, which is why I had to do a second one to cover up. And the second one was for one year. So it took me two and a half years to do two masters.
By the time I finished, I was actually overqualified for the market because I was overstudied with no experience. Then I transitioned to my work visa, which was for two years. This is when I was a consultant.
Then simultaneously I was applying for my permanent residency, so I gave PTE, which is the English test. I gave NAATI, which made me a certified translator. So you know all the different things you do just to get some extra points, because accounting is one of the hardest skills to get a permanent residency on.
PR in Australia works on the basis of supply and demand. So there are always a lot more accountants in terms of supply and a lot less jobs in terms of demand. So the points are quite high for accountants. So I had to keep on doing different things to accumulate more points.
Anyway, I eventually applied for my permanent residency in 2019 when I had enough points. And then I got very lucky in January 2020 when I got my permanent residency, two months before COVID happened. I was very fortunate because had I not gotten it then, I would have been stuck.
I probably would have had to leave Australia if anything, because I would have been on a temporary visa, which was expiring. And immigration was pretty much on hold during the COVID times. So I got very lucky.
So I got my permanent residency in January 2020. And then in, I think, June 2021, I applied, I was given an invitation to apply for citizenship.
I gave my citizenship test and I eventually got my passport around October 2021. It was a six and a half year long journey.
So many! So policies keep changing is one. You feel like there's a bar, and you try to reach that bar, and the bar goes up, and you try to reach that. The requirements keep changing, or they keep adding more.
I think the trickiest part also is this English test, which, to be honest, I passed, but I don't quite understand. The need for it given my country, for instance, Pakistan is a Commonwealth country and we speak English from since we're five. All official documents are in English, but you still have to give this test, still have to reach a really high bandwidth to qualify for getting five additional points, which I think is very tricky because you have to work hard on a language that is quite native to us. I found that very tricky.
I found NAATI which was a translator exam, very tricky as well because it's a 10 minute test and you pay $800 or something, which is ridiculous. You wait six months to get your slot because so many people apply for it and it's quite popular to get five more points.
And because you're doing a translation test, you have to switch between English to Urdu to English, and in our country, we don't speak proper Urdu. We speak a mix of English and Urdu and the Urdu that you have to speak in the translation exam is the official Urdu, which we never speak. So I had to learn my own language in Australia, which I hadn't ever spoken. So that was very tricky. But thankfully I passed in the first go, because otherwise I would have to wait another six months or so and pay huge amounts to redo it.
So I feel like the whole immigration system unfortunately is very hard and because there's so many people applying, if you miss one boat, then you have to wait a long time for the next one while your visa is expiring.
Yeah, look I think post COVID a lot has changed. A lot of policies have changed. I would say YouTube is really good because a lot of immigration consultants put up a lot of videos on what's changing.
And as I said, Australian immigration is based on skills. So it depends on your skills, whether you're an engineer, a doctor, accountant, teacher, nurse, have a look at that. There's specific YouTube videos or by immigration consultants that would really help you.
Yeah, I think I did face a few.
In Pakistan, you call your supervisor madam. In Australia, you call them by their name. And in our culture, in Pakistan, it’s very disrespectful to call them by their name. So I used to feel a bit funny about it when I had to start working because I'm supposed to call them sir or ma'am or whatever. Whereas in Australia, it's really frowned upon because everyone is so humble here. They get taken aback and go like you don't have to call me that. So that was definitely my first culture shock.
My second one was probably around how chill everyone is at work in terms of dressing up, because, for me, I always thought that I need to have professional attire like pencil skirts or pants and heels and all that. And it was really interesting because I would hardly see anyone wearing that in government.
So yeah, there were a few culture shocks for sure. But I think I've probably absorbed that now. So I think now if someone calls me ma'am, I'd find it very strange and just go please don't call me ma'am. Like this feels weird.
Yeah, I've worked with several recruiters. I would say my experience was okay. Some were great.
One recruiter once told me to change my name because it was so hard for companies to remember me. I was taken aback by that because I said, look, it's a multicultural country and you don't have to say my name correctly. You don't have to. I would not get offended. I understand my name is quite a difficult name, but having said that I will not change my identity.
But then to be fair, there were some who were super helpful as well. My visa was always a problem at the time because I was a student visa. So I think while recruiters are great and they do try to help you to the best of their ability, sometimes you have to make your own luck.
I reached out to some, some reached out to me. I've tried to keep my LinkedIn profile up to date as much as I can. So I do get approached by recruiters a lot even now.
But having said that, at the time when I was actively looking, I would reach out to them and a lot of them would call me and try to understand what I want, what's my background, and try to match me with a potential job opportunity.
100%. Reach out to recruiters. And even if you don't get anything out of it, it's a great learning experience because you will learn how to talk to recruiters, how to explain what you want.
And eventually, if you talk to, say, a company director like I did, you'll be a lot more clear on what you really want out of a role.
LinkedIn. Search by people, search by city, filter down to the industry. LinkedIn has a lot of keywords that you can use in your search bar. And it will really help you filter down to the right person.
Use Google. Google up the top recruitment agencies in, say, Sydney, if you're very specific to which city you want.
They do. I think there's definitely an awareness now on the value international students bring and look even.
If they can't find your job, it, like I said, will be a great learning experience regardless. Knock on all doors. Recruitment agencies, companies.
On LinkedIn, go to that company's page and see who works there and then target those people, message them.
Knock on all doors. Eventually, one will open.
Yes, definitely.
My favourite part of my work is my team.
What is the worst part of my job at the moment? I actually won't call it the worst part, but I'm trying to figure out my career progression.
It really depends on the hierarchy of the organisation but career progression usually goes something like this:
Projects and programs are temporary organisations.
A program would have multiple projects. One project would finish and another project would pop up.
The portfolio would have different programs.
A portfolio is not temporary, because finance has to be there as a part of the organisation to run. As long as the organisation is there, finance has to be there. So portfolio is the permanent structure.
We've got project managers, we've got scrum masters because our program is agile. We've got change experts, change managers, communications experts, and we've got quite a few people. That program has around 60-65 resources at a time working on the program.
Grades, yes. We have what is called the Crown Clerk grade in the Ministry of Health, Treasury and Education.
In government, that's how it is. There are no bonuses.
It's based on performance so within a grade, there are four tiers. So each year you have a performance review, and if you're doing fine, you get bumped up to the next grade.
So for instance, I'll give you an example of my grade, it's called 11/12 Crown Clerk grade. It's the highest non-executive grade in government. So you start off with 11 minimum, 11 max, 12 minimum, 12 max. So every year, based on your performance, you get the next level up. So I am now 12 max, so I've reached the height of my band at the moment.
But it is based on your performance, obviously. So if there are performance issues, then you don't get bumped up.
And performance reviews are quite rigorous in health. We really have to fill out documents about what we've done, go through those with our direct manager, and if needed, the next level up as well.
There is this huge misconception which fails me is that life is a lot easier in the public sector. You finish up at 4pm apparently, or some people, someone said to me 3, 3:30. And I just stared at them because I don't know who are these people who finish up so early. I don't know anyone personally. And I've been in Health for quite some time. Definitely a huge misconception on the amount of work.
People think there's not that much work in government. It's pretty slow. It's not as fast paced as the private sector. That is not true. COVID years aside, there's always been a lot happening in public sector and in the future years, there are a lot more projects and programs coming through. So I think that's a huge misconception that in government, there's not a lot of work. That is not true at all.
I wouldn't say I have set hours. I do think that my direct line manager is very flexible. She doesn't micromanage us. As long as we do our work, she's happy.
Typically, like my meetings would finish around six at most, and if I want to do my own stuff say go to gym or go out with friends or whatever, I would do that, wrap up, close off, and then if I need to, I jump back and work at night, so I think it's more a matter of me doing my own work as required, meeting my deadlines, as opposed to “You have to work from nine to six” or something.
It's not like that. There's a lot of flexibility if I need to go to say the doctors in the middle of work or whatever post office, just tell your direct manager, your colleagues or whatever. And everyone's pretty okay with it, because everyone understands, we have a life outside of work as well.
So it's quite flexible in that sense which I really appreciate, but obviously that doesn't mean that I don't jump into my meetings as required or, I'm just not available because I need to do something personal.
In government:
I really appreciate that because mental health is something that didn't get as much importance previously as it is getting now. You can also apply for a therapist. I think they give you 10 sessions annually. You can get like dietitians, so you get a lot of resources.
My job can be very stressful because my job requires managing stakeholders. I don't manage systems. I manage people. So it can be stressful at times. I would say it can go up to 9/10 at times.
Expectations. Definitely for your senior stakeholders, because you are given a certain budget, a very strict timeline, and you do a business case.
Projects are small, as I said, six months, one year, max two years. Programs are a lot longer. You can only predict what it's going to be like in three years or four years time, right? So yeah, managing expectations is quite hard.
But I think the best way to do that is to keep them on the journey. Just keep them informed of any issues that can impact your cost, your schedule, your resourcing, for instance. Yeah, as long as you communicate openly and effectively, I think that's the best thing that you can do.
No, there are a lot of project management jobs in government. And as I said, there are a lot of projects coming in government. There are a lot in the pipeline at the moment. A lot of programs, projects are going to come forward and are in the market. So there are definitely a lot of jobs out there.
Don't be afraid. I think that the thing with grads is they really doubt themselves. They feel they don't have experience or they don't have that much to offer, which is not true at all.
I've worked with grads. I get grads every six months and they are exceptionally bright. They are really talented. We value them, so value yourself is my advice.
They are exceptionally bright, I would say. I love getting grads in our team because they just bring so much new perspective, insights, and they're hardworking, very talented and they implement new ways of working.
So I wouldn't call it the most exciting. It was actually very stressful, but it was definitely the most interesting, which is this project which was called rights of private practice, which is around the automation of a form that doctors use, our staff specialists in particular, use.
It was very technical but it was really interesting because you're dealing with staff specialists, you're dealing with finance and you're dealing with HR, so it was a wide area of stakeholders and then the executives were involved.
It is a very political landscape as you can imagine, because pay and salaries is always a political space to work with. A lot of unions are involved in everything.
I learned a lot in that project. I learned the different levels of work, how the HR systems work within health, how the finance, then it comes from doctor to HR to finance that whole stream of work.
So yeah that was definitely a very interesting project for me to work on. And I'm very grateful I got to do it.
Managing difficult stakeholders. I had to work with the doctors union. Obviously, there's a lot of like legalities around these things and stuff, so it was really interesting, and I learned a lot from them .Working with them I got exposed to the legal side of it, and the things that you have to consider in a project like that, so steep learning curve.