How to make work experience, volunteering and part-time jobs count: a student's guide
A student's guide to making work experience, volunteering and part-time jobs count in Australia — the rules by state, and turning experience into stronger applications.
By EduTrail Team ·
If you've ever been told to "get some experience" and had no idea what that actually means, you're not alone. It sounds like a job you're too young for, or a favour you can't call in. In practice, experience comes in three ordinary shapes that are open to most high school students: work experience, volunteering, and a part-time job. None of them requires connections or a perfect résumé. What separates the students who get real value from them isn't luck — it's knowing the rules, choosing something that fits, and being able to say afterwards what they learned. This guide is for students (and the parents helping them) who want to make their time count.
Experience beats a wish list
It's easy to think a careers plan is about picking the right job title. It isn't — it's about building enough self-knowledge to make each next choice a good one, and nothing builds that faster than actually doing something in the real world. (If you're starting from scratch, our guide on building a careers plan in high school is the companion to this one.)
Real experience does two things a quiz can't. First, it tests an interest — you find out whether you actually like the reality of a field, not just the idea of it. Second, it creates evidence — concrete examples of you being reliable, working in a team, or solving a problem, which you can later point to in an application, an interview, or a conversation with a careers adviser. Both are worth far more than a longer wish list of dream jobs.
The three kinds of experience
Each of the three works differently and suits a different situation. You don't need all of them — one, done thoughtfully, is plenty.
| Experience | What it is | Usually paid? | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Work experience | A short placement with an employer (often about a week), arranged through your school | No — it's unpaid | A first taste of an industry, usually around Year 10 |
| Volunteering | Time given to a cause or community organisation | No — by definition | Building people skills, commitment and community connection |
| Part-time job | Paid, ongoing work around school (retail, hospitality, coaching, tutoring) | Yes | Independence, money skills, and reliability you can evidence |
Work experience is the most structured. In Victoria it's the short-term placement of secondary students with employers, generally undertaken in Years 9 or 10; in NSW it's unpaid, usually lasts around a week, is arranged through your school, and is an option from Year 10. It's the lowest-commitment way to see inside a workplace, and your school does most of the organising.
Volunteering is the most flexible. Volunteering Australia defines it as "time willingly given for the common good and without financial gain" — which covers everything from a school sports committee to a weekend at an animal shelter. It's often the easiest experience to start, and (as you'll see below) universities pay real attention to it.
A part-time job is the biggest commitment and the one with the most rules — which is where it pays to know the law before you start.
Know the rules before you start a part-time job
Before you accept a paid job, it's worth knowing that the rules on how young you can work, and how many hours, are set by each state — and they're genuinely different. The table below covers the three most populous states for workers under 15 (rules generally relax once you turn 15). This is a starting point, not legal advice: always confirm the current details with your state's official source.
| State | Minimum age to work | Delivery-work age | Hours during school term (under 15) | You generally can't work... |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| VIC | 13 (retail, hospitality, other) | 11 | Max 3 hrs/day, 12 hrs/week | during school hours — and an employer needs a licence to employ under-15s |
| NSW | No set minimum legal age | — | Limited by school attendance rules | during school hours (without permission) |
| QLD | 13 | 11 (supervised delivery) | Max 4 hrs on a school day | between 10pm and 6am |
A few things stand out. In Victoria, an employer "usually needs a licence to employ someone under 15, whether the work is paid or voluntary" — so if a workplace under-15 seems casual about paperwork, that's a flag. In Queensland, the general minimum is 13 (11 for supervised delivery work), with a 4-hour cap on a school day and no work between 10pm and 6am. In NSW, there's no set minimum legal age, but you can't work during school hours without permission and your hours are limited by compulsory-schooling rules.
Victoria: max hours a week for an under-15 worker
If you're in another state or territory, the same principle holds: there's an official rule, and it's easy to find on your state government's business or youth site. Check it before your first shift.
Volunteering: small commitment, real skills
Volunteering is the most underrated of the three. It's flexible, you can usually start younger than you can for paid work, and it builds exactly the skills that are hard to demonstrate any other way — showing up when you're not being paid, working with people of all ages, and sticking with something over time.
Good places to look: your school (committees, peer support, tutoring younger students), local sporting clubs (coaching, refereeing, canteen), community organisations, libraries, and environmental or animal-welfare groups. Start with something you already care about — commitment is much easier to sustain when you do.
One practical note: some volunteering roles, especially those involving children or vulnerable people, may ask for a check or clearance before you start. That's normal — just ask the organisation what's involved when you sign up, rather than being surprised later.
Make it count: turn experience into evidence
Here's the part most students skip — and it's the part that does the work. An experience only "counts" once you can say what you got from it. A shift stacking shelves is just a shift until you can explain that it taught you to stay calm during a rush and to notice what needed doing without being asked.
The simplest way to capture this is to run every experience through three questions, ideally soon after — not in December when you've forgotten the details:
- What did I do? The concrete task or responsibility (not the job title).
- What did I learn? A skill, a strength, or something about yourself or the field.
- What does it show? The quality it's evidence of — reliability, teamwork, initiative, communication.
Keep these notes somewhere simple — a phone note or a doc. Over a year they become the raw material for a résumé, a scholarship or early-entry application, or an interview answer. This is also exactly what a Career Action Plan (CAP) is built to hold, so your experiences and what they taught you don't get lost between now and when you need them.
Why this matters right now: early entry and applications
If you're in the senior years, there's a timely reason to get good at this. Many universities run early offer schemes that assess more than your ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank — the rank used for university selection, not a mark out of 100). According to UAC (the University Admissions Centre, the tertiary admissions centre for NSW and the ACT), these schemes "let eligible Year 12 students receive a university offer before ATAR-based offers are released" and may assess "your Year 11 results, your school's recommendation, personal qualities or other selection criteria."
Some are explicit about experience. Macquarie University's Leaders and Achievers scheme, for example, invites applicants to "demonstrate initiative through sport, volunteering, part-time work, or leadership or personal development activities in Years 11 and/or 12." In other words, the part-time job and the volunteering you're doing now can become part of a real application — if you've kept track of what they showed.
The timing is close: UAC's Schools Recommendation Schemes application closes 11 September 2026, with offers released on 12 November and first ATAR-based offers on 23 December 2026. Individual universities set their own dates, many between April and September. None of this guarantees an offer — but it does mean the experiences you're building are worth describing well, and worth describing soon. Check your chosen universities' early-entry pages for their exact criteria and closing dates.
Turning experience into a pathway
The students who get the most from work experience, volunteering and part-time work aren't the ones who do the most of it — they're the ones who notice what it taught them and carry that forward into the next decision. If you'd like a structured way to connect what you're doing now to where it could lead — capturing your experiences, the skills they've built, and the pathways they point to — a Career Action Plan (CAP) walks through it stage by stage, from getting clear on a direction to acting on it. It's a way to make sure a good term of experience actually shapes your next choice, instead of fading into "something I once did."
Last reviewed 30 August 2026. Education and employment rules vary by state and change — we review our guides regularly. Always confirm specifics with the official source linked above.
Frequently asked questions
- How old do I have to be to get a part-time job in Australia?
- It depends on your state. In Victoria the general minimum is 13 (11 for delivering newspapers or advertising material). In Queensland it's also 13 (11 for supervised delivery work). In NSW there's no set minimum legal age, but you can't work during school hours without permission. Rules ease once you turn 15, and they vary — always check your own state's official information.
- Does volunteering count as much as a paid job?
- For building skills and strengthening an application, yes. Volunteering Australia defines volunteering as 'time willingly given for the common good and without financial gain' — and universities' early entry schemes explicitly recognise community contribution alongside paid work. What matters most isn't whether you were paid; it's what you can show you learned and contributed.
- Can real-world experience actually help me get into university?
- It can strengthen an application, though it's never a guarantee. Many universities run early offer schemes that assess more than your ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank) — looking at Year 11 results, a school recommendation, personal qualities, leadership and community contribution. Part-time work and volunteering are exactly the kinds of activity several of these schemes ask about.
- How do I make an experience count if it felt small?
- Reflect on it. A single café shift can show reliability, teamwork and handling pressure; a term of volunteering can show commitment and initiative. Ask three questions of any experience — what did I do, what did I learn, and what does it show about me? That reflection is what turns 'I had a job' into evidence you can use.
- How many hours can I work during the school term?
- It varies by state and age. In Victoria, under-15s can work a maximum of 3 hours a day and 12 hours a week during term; in Queensland, school-aged children can work a maximum of 4 hours on a school day. Across states you generally can't work during school hours. Confirm the current limits with your state's official source before you commit.