Stacey Turner

What's your job about?

My employer is providing maintenance work in the mining/engineering industry for clients such as South32, Newmont, BHP, Rio Tinto etc. My areas of responsibility are in the financial team – providing financial support to the project teams on site. 

I work in the MMS region (Mining & Minerals Southern Region). The area that I service as an accountant is the Southern Region of WA (Bunbury). The client that I work with is South32.

In my current role I am the sole accountant responsible for the South32 Worsley work so it can get pretty full on at times but the role has taught me a lot of accountability and time management. 

My current role doesn’t only cover typical “accounting” tasks I am also exposed to areas such as Payroll, EBA’s, client agreement and rates. A typical week for me starts with payroll on a Monday/Tuesday, responding to any client/internal queries on a Wednesday, preparing weekly claims for the work performed the prior week on a Thursday. Consolidating the claims and supporting documents and sending them out to the client on a Friday.

I am looking after all of the financial aspects of a project, essentially tracking the “profit” that we are making on that particular project. Ensuring that there is no over-spend on purchase orders from the client.

What's your background?

I was born in Durban, South Africa and moved to Perth when I was 6 years old.

I definitely think that Uni was one of the most important stages in my life, I learned a lot during my time there - how to manage my time, accountability - as no one was there to hold you accountable if you didn’t complete the work. It was also a great time in my life as I was able to work while completing my degree and with that money I got to do a fair bit of travelling, opening my eyes to many different cultures.  

My current position actually came about 2 years after I had finished Uni. Straight out of Uni I worked at a mid-tier accounting firm preparing individual & company tax returns (which I quickly realised wasn’t the area of work that I wanted to continue my career in). I then thought I would try something completely different and went into freight forwarding which after a few months I also discovered wasn’t for me. 

I then started applying for “commercial/internal” accounting roles and one with Monadelphous just happened to pop up – I came in for an initial interview with the HR team and then progressed to an interview with my first manager. I was then offered the role and have now been with Monadelphous for just under 2.5 years. 

I think it is really important to understand and be comfortable with the fact that you may not find a job that you love straight out of Uni, it may take some trial and error until you find exactly what it is that you are searching for out of a job. 

I know it is easier said than done, but I do believe it is also really important to try not be disheartened if you don’t pick up a grad role straight away. Try and turn it into a positive and think about all of the interviews you would have sat through and how they will shape you to ace a future interview and land a grad role.

Could someone with a different background do your job?

Most definitely yes, Monadelphous is an extremely diverse workplace and there are a lot of individuals with different backgrounds, ethnicities and values that work within the workplace. 

I think that attention to detail is really important (especially in an accounting role) and I know has been very important to the managers that I have worked under so far. 

Learning how to deal with different/difficult personalities – every workplace has a variety of different people with different personalities working for them. I think it’s really important to learn how to adapt and work with those different personalities so that you can get the job done without conflict. 

What is the coolest thing about your job and what do you find the hardest?

I love the team that I work with, when you work full-time you spend a lot of time with those around you (often more than your own family) and having a good/supportive team around you makes the world of difference.  

I also love the responsibility that I am given (even though it can get a bit overwhelming sometimes) I feel as though I am genuinely appreciated and respected even though I am a grad – I believe if you show that you are enthusiastic and keen to learn and take on responsibility you will be given the opportunity to do so. 

I really think it depends, at the moment (being over 2 years into my grad program) I am given a lot more responsibility than when I first started, but I always have the support of my manager if things do begin to be too much. 

Working in the office, I don’t have to work weekends and it is not physically demanding.

The biggest limitation in my job currently is balancing my work/life/study – as a graduate accountant you are required to study either your CA or CPA.

3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...

• I think one of the biggest pieces of advise that I would give to myself if I were back at Uni would be to try and get some vacation work experience. This is honestly so valuable and you often don’t realise until you are out of university and looking for a job.
• If you have the opportunity to - travel! Having the opportunity to travel opened my eyes to so much around me. It exposed me to so many different cultures and different ways of living as well as different ways of communicating which I believe has helped me in the workplace when dealing with different people and cultures.