News Archive

Dedicated UWA Master of Engineering student Eric Grandinger has made Australia’s top 100, in a nationwide hunt for top leadership talent by recruitment agency GradConnection and Fusion Graduate Consultancy.

Awarded for being one of the most employable graduates in his field, Eric was one of six finalists from UWA and announced a winner at the 2017 Top 100 Future Leaders Awards ceremony held in Sydney earlier this month.

As winner of the Jacobs Engineering Consulting Award, he has received an advanced job offer to work for the firm and will be included in the Top 100 list printed in The Australian Financial Review.

Eric first came across the annual competition on the Whirlpool forum online and as someone who enjoys building teams and engaging in global work and travel, he set about applying.

“The thought of meeting fellow young leaders with a global footprint and similar personal drive and passion really appealed to me.

“I believe my success was driven by my early involvement in UWA’s lively student society scene. The UWA engineering faculty builds and nurtures leadership skills in all its students.

“Certainly making the most of my opportunities has opened many doors and helped me foster strong relationships with engineers and managers from all corners of the globe,” he said.

Competition finalists were drawn from a rigorous selection process including online testing, video interviews, emotional intelligence tests, panel interviews, group case studies and individual presentations.

Importantly students were assessed on academic results as well as skills and experiences that demonstrated leadership potential, including volunteering and work experience undertaken during their studies.

“I loved getting involved in engineering societies at UWA during my Bachelor’s degree. The more I got involved in different societies the more I got out of the experience.

“Over the past few years I have become increasingly involved on the WA committees of global professional bodies such as the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Chartered Institute of Building. I have enjoyed taking the lead role in putting together events for largely professional audiences, while doing my best to motivate fellow students to engage with industry,” Eric said.

During the course of his study Eric was grateful for gaining work experience across the entire construction project life-cycle over the course of three internships in Kuala Lumpur, Munich and Singapore.

The snowboarding and German hiphop enthusiast intends to continue building his career in project management consulting for large scale infrastructure and commercial real estate projects, both locally and internationally, and now also has a new job offer to consider.

The other five UWA competition finalists were from different fields: May Yan and Amy Wang – Ashurst Law Award; Jonathon Israel – Commonwealth Bank Innovation Award; Robert Banks – Deloitte Software Engineering Award; Shreya Gupta – Orica Mining Oil and Gas Award.