Golden ticket: Oscar MacLeod Savage is now working for a well-known construction group
As teams from six universities battle to win this year’s CIOB Global Student Challenge in Hong Kong, the team leader of 2014’s winning team from RMIT University in Melbourne is still celebrating – because the experience has clearly had a positive impact on his career.
Oscar MacLeod Savage, 25, has just secured a place on the construction management graduate programme with a major international construction company in London, days after completing his last exam for his Bachelor of Applied Science degree in construction management.
It’s a role that he says the competition and its prize of mentoring from PPCIOB Peter Jacobs helped prepare him for – and an outcome that he says justifies his view that the competition could become his “golden ticket”.
When Savage and three fellow students were selected to represent RMIT, in October 2013, he says that he originally had other plans. “I was planning to work on a tuna boat, earning good money. But I put that on the back burner as well as a holiday with family, just to compete in the preliminary rounds. I already had my eye on the mentoring, I saw that as a highlight.”
CIOB Global Student Challenge 2015
Six teams are currently competing in Hong Kong for this year’s title. There are three Australian universities, Deakin, Newcastle and Curtin, along with Hong Kong University, Glasgow Caledonian and Loughborough universities.
Glasgow Caledonian’s team, Saltire, has been in the lead for much of the competition so far, while the rankings below them have changed substantially.
Saltire’s Dale Mason commented: “The best thing about this competition is the business learning side. It’s a massive learning curve, seeing things not just in terms of calculations and equations but in terms of the outcomes of your decisions.”
The winners of the competition will be announced at a gala dinner at Hong Kong’s New World Millennium Hotel tonight. For further coverage of the competition and reports, see the competition website and Facebook page, and CM’s website next week.
The contest is seen as an opportunity for university students to learn real-life skills in contract management, teamwork and leadership, by plotting the strategy of a virtual contractor in simulation software called Merit, or Management Enterprise Risk Innovation and Teamwork.
Savage and fellow team members Joel Mitchell, Luke Mitirione and Frederick Austin took on specific job roles – such as chief executive, construction director, finance director – and then managed simulated bidding and estimating, contract management, cash flow, and overheads.
Over six preliminary rounds, the teams spent a week working on the challenge to prepare their submissions. From the outset, Savage says the RMIT team plotted a strategy that would allow them to accrue enough points to win overall, not just to make it to the final in Hong Kong.
But what did he learn during the challenge that he will take to his new role? “I learned a lot about the importance of optimising efficiency, because things that seem so little can make a big difference. And that you’re part of a bigger [company] picture, you’re not just working on one project. There’s more at play in the company, and what you do can affect the whole company, not just your project.”
The “golden ticket” paid off, with Savage forming a good bond with Jacobs in fortnightly Skype mentoring sessions, and Jacobs helping him to research career opportunities in London.
“I really wanted to challenge myself, and London is the doorstep of Europe. It’s a great way to gain experience whilst progressing my career with one of the best companies in the world.”
“And regardless of the lifestyle, I think working in London is one of the best places to be in construction – for instance, the understanding of environmental factors and sustainability is really well embedded. And all the issues of ethical and responsible sourcing – the CSR at Brookfield and other companies in London is pretty special,” he explains.
When he arrives in London to take up his new post in September, another benefit of the Global Student Challenge will be the ready-made network of friends from other teams that competed in Hong Kong last year, including Loughborough, Greenwich and Glasgow Caledonian.
And thanks to his exposure to the CIOB, he’s already in touch with the London Novus committee and plans to take an active role in its activities.
