What's your name and job title? What did you study? When did you graduate?
Dylan Singh, departmental officer at the Department of Health. I studied earth sciences and completed my masters in 2016.
Where did you grow up? Can you tell us about your educational background?
I am Canberra born and bred. I completed a Bachelor of Science with honours in geology at the Australian National University before working in the labs at university as a research assistant. I then did a Masters in Earth Sciences (which involved corals, radiocarbon and pH) before deciding it would be nice to do something completely different for a while. I also wanted something that had more real-world and practical applications, which is why I ended up applying for the Department of Health graduate program. After finishing the grad program I found a permanent position in the Health System Financing section.
How did you get to your current job position? For how long have you had it?
I negotiated to get my current position at the end of the grad program having spent a rotation there earlier. By default you are expected to return to your home rotation at the end of the program, but there are also opportunities to move to other areas if you find something that really takes your interest. I have been here about three months now.
What does your employer do?
The Department of Health is the steward of Australia’s health system with the goal of improving the health and wellbeing of all Australians. It is responsible for shaping Australia’s health and aged care system and sport outcomes through providing evidence-based policy advice, managing health programs, and through regulation and research.
What are your areas of responsibility?
My section is responsible for the department’s medium-term expenditure forecasting and reconciling past expenditure. We also research trends in and drivers of expenditure for individual health programs, and write think pieces on fiscal sustainability that helps inform policies in other areas of the department.
Can you describe a typical work day?
I get in, catch up with my team and once I’m logged on I’ll check my emails and then the Daily Brief. The Daily Brief is a collection of all current media that may have an impact on or relate to the department and our work. I check it to see if there’s anything relating to health expenditure or fiscal sustainability (lately that’s been hospital spending and private health insurance premiums), but it’s also worth checking to get a better understanding of the current issues for the department and health system as a whole.
We often get ad hoc requests from within and outside the department to provide or quality assure health expenditure figures and provide input into related documents. If there is nothing of that nature that needs urgent attention I will continue with some of my long-term projects. These involve updating our medium-term forecasting models, researching drivers of expenditure for health programs and working on fiscal sustainability papers. This work can be independent or in conjunction with other members of my team.
For lunch I’ll try and go outside and meet up with some of the grads from my year, though it’s more difficult to organise now that we are all so much busier. If no one’s available or I go to lunch late I’ll end up going for a walk.
I make a point to catch up with my supervisor during the day to discuss our current work. Some days will also involve section, branch or divisional meetings where we discuss work in progress and future priorities.
Suppose a student was considering your career. What would you advise them to study?
A degree that would be useful for someone in my position would be an economics-related degree; health economics in particular. However, the content of my studies has very little in common with my current work, so any degree that provides a strong background in data analysis, statistics, research methods and science communication would be beneficial. Most specific skills related to my position, including an understanding of economics, can be learnt on the job.
What sort of person succeeds in your career?
Someone who is adaptable and open to learning, who has good communication skills and a good attitude, can work collaboratively and think critically, and is open-minded and reliable. Basically anyone who is willing to put in the effort to learn and develop to meet the expectations of the role.
What do you love the most about your job? Which kind of task do you enjoy the most?
The people; my immediate team but also all [of] my grad friends scattered across the department. I also love that in my section we get a broad oversight of everything that’s happening within the health system (not just across the department but also nationally and internationally) but at the same time can look at particular aspects in detail. My favourite tasks involve researching different aspects of the health system and health programs and also putting together interesting stats relating to health expenditure.
What’s the biggest limitation of your job?
Having to collaborate so broadly across and outside the department can sometimes be challenging as some areas can be quite siloed.
What would your career be if you weren’t doing what you’re doing now?
If I hadn’t decided to leave uni to join the department I would probably still be there in a research capacity relating to either marine science or archaeology.
Which three pieces of advice would you give to a current university student?