Australian Professional Year (IT): What are the Benefits & Eligibility?

Are you a recent Information Technology (IT) graduate in Australia? Do you hold (or have applied for) a Temporary Graduate Visa (Subclass 485)? Looking for a course with real-world, relevant, practical training, that can open up a potential career path for you in Australia? If you answered in the affirmative to any of the questions, then the Professional Year Program for IT could be just the right fit for you. The Professional Year Program is a structured career-development program.

For recent international ICT graduates in Australia, it acts as a streamlined pathway from academics to real-world employment, making them employment-ready. The program combines academics with real-world work experience and helps participants to function effectively in a workplace environment.

The Information Technology or IT Professional Year Program stretches over 44 weeks – 32 out of them dedicated to course-related work combined with 12 weeks of internship. Participants gain extensively from exposure to the Australian work environment.

Benefits of Completing the Professional Year Program

5 Points for Australia PR:
The top-most benefit of completing the PYP is that it offers 5 extra points that can help in establishing your eligibility for Permanent Residency in Australia. For those seeking to settle in Australia permanently, this is a distinct advantage.

Internship Opportunities:
Landing a job that suits their qualification and offers enough growth opportunities is a formidable challenge for overseas students. With a PYP, students can access a well-defined pathway to a rewarding job in Australia after graduating. As you may know, many Australian institutes provide internships for those enrolled under PY. Some of these internships have the potential to turn into permanent positions with companies when candidates complete the PY program. In any case, the addition of the internships on their CVs boosts opportunities of gaining employment with other employers.

Networking Opportunities:
One cannot over-emphasise the importance of networking for building a long and rewarding career in Australia. The PYP program helps participants to grow their exposure to professional environments, peers, and senior professionals in their chosen field. This group of people often have the similar or same experience, knowledge, interests and aims as the participants. So with networking opportunities, the candidates can explore more options and use them well to grow their careers.

Familiarity with the Work Environment:
International Students have a lot to learn and master about Australian workplaces, standards, environments, communication and conduct codes so that they can function flawlessly. The PYP takes into account this factor and is designed to help participants gain a thorough understanding of the Australian work environment. Through the program, participants experience first-hand how professionals work, and this helps them learn quicker.

Eligibility Criteria

As you may know, the PYP program in IT was developed by the Australian Computer Society (ACS) to help recent graduates gain core training and workplace skills. Let’s look at the criteria one needs to fulfil to be eligible to apply for PYP:

The completion of a recognised Australian IT degree with at least two years of credit points.

The applicants must hold (or should have applied for) a Temporary Graduate Visa (Subclass 485) with a validity of 12 months.

Minimum IELTS band score 6 / overall score of 50 in PTE (50 across all modules).

How Aussizz Group Can Help

Since 2010, Aussizz Group has represented multiple providers of PYP-all institutes that have collaborations with industry across Australia. These connections allow them to connect candidates with rewarding employment opportunities. These institutes are sought after by candidates, as the programs they offer have been created in consultation with apex bodies such as CPA Australia, the Institute of Chartered Accountant in Australia, the Australian Computer Society, and more.

Consequently, these institutes are recognised all over Australia for their quality PY programs. Their expertise accumulated over the years, placements, networking opportunities set them apart from the rest.

To know more, or get your specific queries answered, please feel free to get in touch without Professional Year Program experts. For your migration queries, our Migration Agents for Australia can help you as well. We will be happy to assist you!