Madeleine Anderson

Where did you grow up? What was life like before working at Alcoa? 

I spent the majority of my childhood growing up in Busselton, Western Australia (or Busso as us locals call it). During this time, I spent my weekends playing hockey and swimming in our famously flat crystal beaches. With a backyard of Dunsborough, Margaret River, Yallingup and Busselton, I spent a lot of my weekends and spare time exploring these areas with family and friends. 

I graduated from Mackillop Catholic College in 2015 and made the big brave move to Perth city to pursue university studies with my best friend. I had only decided that moving to Perth and going to university was the path for me a mere couple of months before I had to move, so I put my head down and bum up for a final semester, before scraping through with an ATAR to get a regional admission to Curtin University.

Three years later I graduated on schedule with a Bachelor of Commerce (Human Resource Management) (Industrial Relations) with Distinction. It wasn’t a smooth ride by any means! There was definitely a struggle and times where I thought I wouldn’t make it, but the amazing like-minded individuals that I met along the way helped me to continue pursuing my career.

During my studies, I completed several work experiences, internships and vacation placements, in addition to founding the Human Resources Student Association of Western Australia. All of this helped me greatly in securing graduate employment with Alcoa. 

What does your employer do?

Alcoa’s Australian operations represent one of the world’s largest integrated bauxite mining, alumina refining and aluminium smelting systems. Without even knowing it, you would have been using everyday products containing our aluminium such as toothpaste tubes, staples and cool drink cans.

What are your areas of responsibility?

As the human resources graduate for the West Australian Alcoa Bauxite business unit, I am responsible for assisting and enabling employees to perform their roles to their greatest capacity. 

Directly reporting to the global bauxite talent manager (based in Australia), who reports to the global HR director (based in Brazil) means that my role is heavily influenced by employee performance management; attracting, sourcing and retaining top talent; and researching and deploying opportunities for employee development. The role requires that I am creative, adaptable, an active listener, a good communicator and a quick learner.

Can you describe a typical workday? What was the last thing you worked on?

My day often starts with coffee (obviously!) and checking emails for immediate tasks. These tasks can include helping someone log personal information through our human resource information system or drafting organisational wide communications regarding events and up and coming training. 

By mid-morning, I usually have a list of tasks set for the day with the main priorities highlighted. Those main priorities are usually the product of emails sent the day or night before (from colleagues in the U.S. and Brazil). After the highlighted tasks are worked through, I can focus on more longer-term projects such as researching potential avenues for student and youth engagement, developing position descriptions for future graduate roles, or collaborating with other functions to arrange and deploy employee development opportunities and training. 

By 4.00 pm knock off I would have created the beginning of tomorrow’s list and prepared for any meetings the next day.

What do you love the most about your job? Which kind of task do you enjoy? 

I love the autonomy and task variety of my job. One day I might be developing a graduate program for our soon to be engineer graduates, whilst the next day I might be travelling to the mine site to deliver training to employees. The most rewarding part of my job though is learning about the employees I’m responsible for helping. By learning about who they are I can better offer my assistance, advice and guidance where required. Being able to help someone the exact way that they personally require, is super rewarding to me. Everybody is different. Everybody works, learns and communicates differently, so being able to know exactly how I can assist them in doing their job better is a win for all of us.

Which three pieces of advice would you give to a current university student?

• Have fun! It’s important to remember that your student days are some of the best in your life, so you should take every opportunity to have fun, meet new people and try new things! I juggled a full-time study load, a state-wide student association and multiple internships/work experience placements all whilst forgetting to take a moment to enjoy the student days, which is something I regret.  
• Network! I absolutely cannot stress this enough. Networking and making friends throughout your degree will be crucial to your personal and professional development. These are the people you will continuously turn to for help and advice in and out of the workplace.
• Stick to a plan! At the beginning of every semester, I would construct a study plan to make sure that I had all my lecture notes and assessment milestones done by the end of each week. This plan would usually run successfully for all of three weeks before it was abandoned for competing priorities, eg student association or work. My advice would be to make sure that there isn’t too much on your plate preventing you from sticking to the plan and doing the best you can.