When she answered a LinkedIn advertisement for a graduate intern in a new department at Amazon Australia, Paaromita did not know just how life-changing that first step onto the career ladder would be.
At the time she was studying an Economics and International Relations degree at Monash University in Melbourne.
Now less than three years later, she is an Amazon area manager in charge of a team of 40 people at the company’s Melbourne Ravenhall fulfilment centre - at the age of 24.
“As an intern what I found really amazing about Amazon is that there is this creative freedom,” she says, explaining her leader at the time encouraged her to consider all the opportunities Amazon offers globally in terms of networking and career advancement.
If I had one piece of advice for graduates, it would be to find an organisation that lets you explore what you want from your career. At Amazon they really trust someone new who steps into the organisation, but they also guide you on what you want to achieve.
Paaromita says she was fortunate to secure an intern role in Amazon’s human resources department where she enjoyed the visibility of the overall business that she had and the networking opportunities available.
One of the first projects she was part of was setting up a dedicated graduate recruitment process for the operations business at Amazon. She gathered best practice and learnings from her colleagues recruiting graduates for Amazon in other geographies, and combined this with her own knowledge and experience to inform her recommendation.
After her internship was completed, Paaromita was offered a full-time role as a recruiter and in that role she was thrilled to come full circle, and be the person who recruited the first two graduate roles within operations in Australia.
It wasn’t long before Paaromita was ready for another challenge, and decided to shift her career focus from recruitment to management. Taking advantage of Amazon’s openness to job mobility, she applied for and was awarded the role of area manager at Melbourne’s brand new Ravenhall fulfilment centre.
“Amazon allows that opportunity for you to explore within the business where you would like to go. You have the opportunity to meet some of the best talent and learn from them,” she says.
“And the added bonus is the fact it’s a global organisation, so if you are interested in travelling, they are very good at facilitating that as well. There is a plethora of opportunities and wherever you want to take your career, Amazon really does support that.”
Amazon Australia currently has openings for its 2022 internship program. There are opportunities around Australia in roles ranging from retail, engineering, operations, management and business development to software engineering, and cloud support. Interested students can head to https://www.amazon.jobs/en/business_categories/student-programs to find out more and apply.
