Jordy Griffiths is about to do her second Indigenous Internship at NAB. She spoke to NAB News about being Indigenous and what her career so far has given her since starting out as a NAB School-Based Trainee.

“My mob, the Barkindji people, are from the River Darling Basin in NSW, but I grew up in Adelaide. My mum is Indigenous Australian and my dad’s family came from Wales generations ago.

I’m really proud of my heritage but I still hear lots of stereotypes. People say things to me like ‘You’re too creamy to be Aboriginal’ or ‘You seem really smart for an Aboriginal’. It just highlights the inaccurate assumptions they have.

During high school I did a two-year traineeship with NAB, where I worked one day a week in NAB branches in Adelaide and the other four at school. I remember one older Indigenous lady who came in and was struggling a bit with technology. I sat with her for an hour. She told me some of the stories from her culture and there were some similarities with stories from my nation. By the end she had the biggest grin on her face. She was just so grateful.

Now I’m at Adelaide University studying psychology and I work as a relief bank teller at different NAB branches around Adelaide.

Over the holidays I completed a Summer Internship which was organised through NAB Early Careers in partnership with CareerTrackers, a national non-profit organisation that helps to create paid internship opportunities for Indigenous students.

I worked virtually within the People & Culture Division that is based in Head Office in Melbourne.  I gave the team feedback about my own experiences as a young person and as an Indigenous person to help them develop their early careers offerings. For example, when you start as a School-Based Trainee there are so many codes you need to learn. We put together a mini-guide with all the codes to provide new Trainees, which was my way of giving back. I’m coming back to do a Winter Internship in June and would highly recommend the program to others.”

NAB is currently sourcing candidates in partnership with CareerTrackers for our Winter Program which will run from Mon 21 June – Friday 23 July. Expressions of Interests will be considered until Friday 30 April for our Winter Placement.

If you are an Indigenous student studying at university and interested in a NAB/CareerTrackers Winter or Summer Internship, please register your interest with CareerTrackers here.

You can visit NAB’s Indigenous employment page to find out more.