My Volunteer Experience - Hang Zhang
Photo: Volunteer Hang Zhang
This National Volunteer Week 17 - 23 May 2021, Connecting Up would like to thank our wonderful volunteers working across a number of roles, keeping the SAcommunity database updated, performing data analysis for coucils and highlight community organisations by writing articles for SAcommunity eNews.
We would also like to take this opportunity to introduced some of our fabulous volunteers and share their experiences. Hang joined the Connecting Up volunteer team at the start of the year and so Oscar Bigiolli took some time to ask him a few questions about himself and his time here to share his experience as part of our My Volunteer Experience series for National Volunteer Week.
My Volunteer Experience Q&A - Hang Zhang interviewed by Oscar Bigiolli:
How did you get started as a volunteer?
I joined the team at Connecting Up at the beginning of this year 10th February 2021, having recently graduated from the University of South Australia with a Masters of Information Technology for Enterprise Management. I previously studied biology at university and wanted to expand into a different field with more employment opportunities, choosing IT for its interest, popularity and the current and future practical applications it has across many areas.
Volunteering at Connecting Up was a good fit for me, as the organisations IT focus towards supporting not-for-profits directly aligns with my Masters studies in IT. I also noticed other students with the same masters on LinkedIn having undertaken volunteering at Connecting Up before they moved into employment, having developed strong skills, experience and networks such as former volunteer Alison Do. In fact, I recently joined Toastmasters to improve my public speaking and language skills to find that Alison was running the group!
What have you been working on at Connecting Up?
My key interest is in Business and Data analytics, I'm really interested in how it can be used to support decision-making in an organisation and this was one of my favorite topics at university. Consequently, I have been working alongside volunteer Stathis Avramis to work on a project he initiated using Power BI (business intelligence software) and Canva (graphic design software) to provide reports for South Australia Councils from data gathered from web analytics (Google Analytics) and the SAcommunity database, to assist with understanding the community sector operating in that area, community need and therefore decision-making to serve the population.
(August 2021 Update)The Council Statistics program is working well and providing data analysis summaries to councils on their local community services in addition to assisting with data cleansing. Thus far I have completed data reports on several councils as part of the data team including: Barossa Council; Berri-Barmera; Clare & Gilbert Valleys and others.
I have also been completing SAcommunity directory updates which involves assessing information received from emails and online to update and edit the database. The tasks of Updating and Data analysis together, helps me look at the data differently and understand how to clean the data and index information for both the database use and council reports. It requires the ability to understand and interpret the needs of community services and the public.
To continue to build on my data updating skills and begin to undertake more complex data updates from 'direct sources' the services themselves, I have also been provided with training in telephone techniques and email standards, receiving lots of practice in the team in readiness to make my first phone call (any day now!) as well as in other areas which help improve my skills and employability.
What would you like to accomplish through volunteering?
My hope in joining Connecting Up was to learn more about the Australian workplace culture through real-world experience and to apply that knowledge in future jobs, especially in the Information Technology sector. I am currently employed and working nights in the hospitality industry, (August update - recently transitioned to working casually in the health sector) however I would ideally like to work full-time as a business or data analyst and assist with business decision-making processes for the corporate or government sector.
How has your volunteer experience been so far?
I enjoy my time here and really like the people who work here and that I volunteer with as they are very friendly and knowledgeable. I have learnt so many practical skills that are ideal in my career path. The direct alignment to what I want to accomplish in the future and what I’m currently doing at Connecting Up has been great!
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Professional Year Vocational Placement Experience
From 7 October 2021 to 31 December 2021 Hang undertook an ICT Business Analysts vocational placement with Connecting Up Inc. for 3 days a week as part of his Professional Year Program. Find more about his vocational placement >>here.
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Pankaj Chhalotre, Head of Connecting Up, Hang Zhang, Intern and Volunteer, Eric Jenkins, Account Manager, Rob Kalka, Business Development Manager and Brad Atkinson, Digital Marketing Coordinator
[Editor's note: We are excited to announce that Hang Zhang now has a full-time role 16 May 2022 as a Data Analyst with a business consortium - Congratulations Hang! This photo is Hang's last day with the Team!]
