ASB Graduate Diaries: Brendan and Adam

Brendan Tan (left) and Adam Frain (right) were existing employees at ASB prior to being on the ASB Graduate Programme. We met Brendan and Adam for coffee and asked them to share their Start Me Up experiences so far.

What area of ASB did you come from before joining the ASB Graduate Programme?

I’ve been all over the place – first as a contractor, followed by working within a branch. I then joined the online share trading team for 4 years and finally moved to the Technology team where I’ve held a few different roles.

What is it like being on the ASB Graduate Programme now vs. being a full-time staff member?

I’d probably use the phrase “outside my comfort zone.” As someone who knew my role inside-out, moving to a new place where I knew next to nothing was pretty uncomfortable and the ASB Graduate Programme has shown me that there’s a lot I don’t know. It’s something I probably wouldn’t have experienced first-hand if I didn’t take that step outside my area of comfort.

Outside comfort zone stuff can sometimes yield amazing results.

Why did you join the ASB Graduate Programme?

Essentially I’ve always wanted to work with enterprise application software and prior to joining the grad programme, my career’s trajectory was leading me further and further away from this.  All I needed was that opportunity, and I found it in the grad programme. 

If you‘re someone who thinks you know where you want to go, the team organising the grad programme try their best to tailor something that’ll put your interests to the opportunity and you’ll also get to try your hand at a few other related roles; you might change your mind when you get into your “dream role,” or perhaps it’ll help confirm your choice in your career.

If you’re someone who doesn’t know where you want to go, think of the grad programme as a “shared platter” you would order at a restaurant – you’ll get a taste of a few different roles to see what life in those roles are like, and whether you enjoy them or otherwise.

Do skills from your previous roles translate to now?

People skills are something that helps wherever you go.  While my previous role was quite unrelated to my current role in the grad programme, I learned a lot about dealing with people and thinking on the spot.  Never dismiss the experiences you’ve had and things you’ve learned in the past, regardless of how irrelevant a previous role may seem to where you are now!

What are your future aspirations?

To be honest, seeing how competent my colleagues are is all the aspiration I need for me to want to keep trying, keep learning and keep improving. But for now I need to take one step at a time, and getting to be as good as my colleagues is many many steps away!

What area of ASB did you come from before joining the ASB Graduate Programme?

I started off as a casual member of the Global Payments team while I was at university. The manager at the time offered me a fulltime job, which I accepted and took a little break from university. During my time in Global Payments I moved around a bit on secondments, and eventually I went back to university to continue studying Information Science as a distance student while working full time.

What is it like being on the ASB Graduate Programme now vs. being a full-time staff member?

It doesn’t feel any different than being a fulltime employee but I do think there are plenty of things that grads do that feel strange to me. It feels odd having to do so much on top of your day to day job but it is something that you get used to.

I would definitely say that it is something that takes me outside of my comfort zone all of the time, but it is a good way to make sure that I come out of my shell.

Why did you join the ASB Graduate Programme?

This is an opportunity that I would have never thought would have ever been available to me.

When I applied for the programme I had just graduated university about 2 weeks before. I applied not really believing I was going to be a successful candidate. I went to the interviews prepared but not really expecting to make much of an impression, and when I was notified I was down to the last six I almost thought it was cruel to let it go on for as long as it did. Being told that I was accepted into the program was by far one of the most bizarre experiences of my life. After really thinking long and hard for about 10 minutes after I got back to my desk, I knew there was no way I could turn something like this down.

Do skills from your previous roles translate to now?

I think working in a high pace/high volume team like Payments and Wholesale Ops prepared me to be mentally strong and not to crack under pressure, but my grad programme rotations are completely different to what I was doing before.

What are your future aspirations?

In all honesty I think my future aspiration is to justify the people who selected me to be on the programme. The other grads in both my Start Me Up and Future Me cohort and the older cohorts have helped me a lot. Hopefully I can give something back to them as well.