Celebrating 10 years of Metro’s engineering graduate program
Celebrating 10 years of Metro’s engineering graduate program
Metro Trains Melbourne is investing in the future of the young and diverse workforce that has been ushered into the Victorian rail industry, thanks to the huge pipeline of major rail projects.
This month Metro celebrates 10 years of its Engineering Graduate Program, which had been established in 2013 to support young people entering and staying in the industry.
Jennifer Nguyen was in the first cohort of graduates to complete the program.
A decade later, she’s still working at Metro as part of the Metro Tunnel Project team as a senior assurance engineer.
In her role, Nguyen is responsible for ensuring that the new Metro Tunnel systems delivered are safe and fit for purpose within the requirements of the existing network.
Of the graduates who have gone through the program, 84 per cent still work at Metro today.
They work across many different areas of the Metro business, including projects, infrastructure and maintenance, operations, rolling stock, electrical networks and even in finance.
Nguyen said that the Graduate Program helped to open her eyes to the different opportunities available to her in the rail industry.
She wanted to work in operations, which wasn’t on the list of rotations for the program, but Metro was supportive of her giving a go.
The operations side of the business is responsible for operating the live railway network – from Metro’s central operational control centre down to the train drivers and customer service officers facing passengers.
With Metro recently growing to 7000 employees, there are thousands of different roles in the industry and a career in rail that can lead to many different projects.
Metro’s Engineering Graduate Program intakes six new graduates every six months, with the program’s most recent recruits starting at the end of January.
Metro is calling on all soon-to-be engineering graduates interested in the rail industry to apply for their next intake in July.
Applications for the next intake are now open, and close on Thursday, April 6.
Metro Trains chief executive officer Raymond O’Flaherty said marking 10 years of the graduate program was a huge milestone.
“We’re really proud of our 95 young graduate engineers joining Metro over the years. The rail industry is changing and we are striving to make it more diverse, inclusive and attractive to young people,” he said.