For Meara Acheson, signing up for an internship at Dunedin’s Bison Group was to prove a beneficial move.
Dunedin’s annual JobDUN business internship programme, which is calling for applications from businesses, was established in 2009 to meet significant industry skills shortages.
Bison Group, founded by brothers Greg and Mark Fahey in 2014, has been involved with JobDUN since before Covid-19 and has hired at least six interns over those years, typically in marketing and engineering-related roles, Greg Fahey said.
"It’s been a great way for us to bring fresh new people into the business, young students eager and keen to get into the real world ... it’s a win win really," he said.
It was often an opportunity for Bison to get people in to do projects that would not otherwise get done and it also gave an opportunity to "size up" a candidate for a full-time role after the internship ended — and for the candidate to get an impression of the company as well, he said.
Funding from the Dunedin City Council also made a difference, sometimes between deciding to do it or not.
"It’s certainly an incentive."
The JobDUN programme had created permanent roles in Dunedin and it was a "no-brainer" for businesses to sign up for it, provided they had the work for it.
A communication design graduate, Ms Acheson "stumbled" across the Bison marketing co-ordinator role through JobDUN and applied.
She got on well with the team, enjoyed the internship and was lucky enough to get a full-time role, she said.
Mr Fahey said one of the attractions of Ms Acheson was her design and visual communication qualifications, and he knew as soon as he interviewed her that he would make her a job offer.
Her attitude, work ethic and self-starter nature came through clearly.
Business people were often so busy dealing with the day-to-day that they did not think about the internship programme as an opportunity to uncover talent.
"Businesses may be pleasantly surprised what young people bring."
Ms Acheson encouraged students to apply, even if a role was in something they had never dabbled in, saying they could work out to be a "success story" like hers.
From Mosgiel, one of the beneficial things of applying had been that she got to stay in Dunedin, as she did not want to move away "just yet".
Bison, which won the supreme award at the Otago Export Awards in 2019, has developed a strong international niche in the container weighing and lifting market, and has demand from major multinationals and even international military customers.
Mr Fahey was very happy with Bison’s progress.
The company was working with renewable energy companies, where there was a lot of growth, and also in the defence space.
The North American region was "really firing".
Bison now employed more than 20 staff.
It was hiring for some new roles, including a customer success manager.
An engineering intern would be sought in the new year, as part of JobDUN, while more staff in the United States would be sought early next year.
