By Kristy McDonald
SUNSHINE has produced the best of the best in employment consultants, with local woman Van Ngo taking out the the National Employment Services Association (NESA) award in that category.
Ms Ngo, who works at MatchWorks in Sunshine, was presented with The Employment Consultant of the Year award at a presentation ceremony in Cairns on Friday night.
The win recognises her commitment to finding her clients – who are mostly classed as highly Disadvantaged or very long term unemployed jobseekers – sustainable employment.
Awards MC, Glenn Capelli, said Van moved to Australia with her mother and siblings as a Vietnamese refugee in 1992, and made the most of every opportunity she had had since then.
“Refusing to allow cultural challenges to become a barrier, she completed her schooling and gained a Bachelor of Accounting. However, numbers proved not to be where her passion lay.
“Looking to find a career where her love of people could blossom, she attended a job seeker training course run by MatchWorks. Before even finishing the course in 2005, Van was ‘talent-spotted’ and offered a job.”
He said that in addition to her success as an employment consultant, she also worked with a number of community groups, charities and Vietnamese organisations to enhance cross-cultural awareness.
The NESA awards also acknowledge hard-working employment teams, former job seekers who have overcome the odds to find employment and ‘champion employers’ who give these job seekers a ‘fair go’.
The employment services industry, together with Centrelink, employs more than 40,000 people working in more than 2,000 offices across Australia.
Together, they liaise with more than one million Australians each year.
