By Andrea Stone, Employee Relations Citrix Systems Asia-Pacific ProGrad initially contacted us to see if they could help with our recruitment needs. They said that they had done some work with Citrix in the UK and would like to continue that relationship with us in Australia. When we contacted our HR colleague in the UK to find out what their experience had been with ProGrad, they gave us a good referral, so we decided to give them a shot. ProGrad works with college graduates who are looking to kick-start their graduate careers through securing a graduate program with a high profile organization. The graduate must demonstrate that they have the right personality, drive and ambition by passing an assessment day. We hired Dean Lawrence on 26 June 2006 and Stephanie Goveas on 3 August 2006 as Inside Sales Representatives. ProGrad have remained in close contact with them to monitor their progress and ensure they are settling in well. They also put all graduates through a professional training program, which encompasses all the key soft skills required by sales and marketing people to be successful. To date, Dean and Stephanie have attended a five day program on Introduction to Business to Business Sales and Marketing, a two-day Solution Selling program, a two day Negotiation Skills course, and a two-day Key Account management program. The cost of the training is included in the original hiring fee, and ProGrad manages all the scheduling and coordination. When Dean joined Citrix he was a recent graduate from the University of Western Sydney and had been working for a company doing technical phone support. Dean has a Bachelor of Business (Information Systems) Majoring in Management. He’s a keen sportsman and enjoys playing Baseball and Cricket. Dean has really hit the ground running since joining Citrix and will conclude his first year with us by attending the Circle of Excellence at President’s club! Stephanie graduated from the University of Technology in Sydney with a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology. Prior to joining Citrix, Stephanie worked for a short time with an accounting firm. Matt Old, Dean & Steph’s Manager, has these glowing words to say: “Both Dean and Steph have demonstrated a level business acumen that was unexpected when hiring graduates. After an initial ramp up/learning period they both hit the phones earlier that I had initially expected. The feedback from their peers, distributors, resellers and even customers has been extremely positive, and the value they are providing to Citrix is already being felt in all areas of our business. In their first nine months Dean and Steph have made over 13,000 calls to end users and resellers and been able to develop over 250 new opportunities worth over US$6.2. Dean finished FY 2006 at over 180% of his yearly target and is off to Presidents Club as a Circle of Excellence winner. It’s been a real pleasure working with both Dean and Steph and watching them develop over the past nine months. They bring to Citrix a contagious enthusiasm that makes them the team to be around, and I really look forward to seeing them continue to grow and add even more value to Citrix.” We have just recently hired two more graduates from ProGrad. Susanna Kenyon-Muir and Liam O’Connor. Susanna and Liam will be working with the Citrix On-Line team as Inside Sales Representative. They are currently in Santa Barbara attending training. Our managers in Technical Support have been following the progress of our college recruits and our currently interviewing candidates from ProGrad for one of their jobs.