The end of high school can often be a daunting time for students. Stressing about exams, trying to get into the right university, choosing the right course. It can often feel as if the weight of your future rests on those final months of year 12.
While students were tossing up between nursing and trades, marketing and vet studies, Cobey Hadley was already well on her way to fulfilling her goals.
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With her father owning a four-wheel drive company, Hadley had spent the majority of her life around vehicles.
“I had always been around four-wheel drives, watching dad fit accessories and camping gear,” Hadley told ABC.
“That was the starting point for me getting into cars and vehicles, I was immediately drawn to it.”
Noticing her interest never faltered, she signed herself up for a light vehicle VET course in her senior year.
“I loved it. It was exactly what I was looking for, something that combined a lot of my interests,” she says.
Inspired and ready to tackle more, Hadley began undertaking various work experiences in the light vehicle sector, even trying out earthmoving.
“I wanted to see what I would like, and how each one would be,” she says. “I was sold on diesel mechanics.”
Joining the VCE Vocational Major program in high school, Hadley was allowed to take two days a week away from school where she could start her first school-based apprenticeship.
Reaching out to various businesses across Melbourne, she was finding it difficult to secure a spot, until she heard about Dysons.
“My mum had bumped into someone that worked at Dysons, and asked if they would consider taking on a new apprentice,” Hadley says.
“They passed on the workshop manager Chris Wood’s email, and I immediately reached out.
“At first, we agreed I could come in for a week’s work experience and see if we would be a good fit. After it was finished, they offered me the two-day a week apprenticeship.”
Despite never working with buses before, she was keen to jump in head-first.
“While the engine side of it is all pretty similar, everything else was so different from the light vehicle side,” she says.
“I was picking up a lot of knowledge really quickly, and their confidence in me from the start was such a big help.”
Hadley is not only one of the youngest in the workshop, but she is also the only woman.
After experiencing what it was like to be the only woman in other work environments, Hadley says she was blown away with the way Dysons treated her.
“I felt at some of the other places that I was constantly underestimated. They wouldn’t really let me do much because they didn’t trust that I would be able to,” she says.
“But as soon as I came here, everyone was just so lovely, and they actually have the confidence in me to let me work with them and give me independent jobs.
“So when they offered me the opportunity to come on full-time as a diesel mechanic apprentice, I jumped at it.”
Hadley says her family has been paramount to her success, supporting her through every stage and encouraging her to go for her dreams.
“They’ve given me the confidence to go for what I want and pursue the career I want despite what other people might say,” she says.
“Without them, I wouldn’t have felt as comfortable going for this job, but now that I have, I know I made the right decision.”
Dysons Bundoora workshop manager Chris Wood says he is super happy with Hadley on his team.
“Cobey is great, she’s probably the second best apprentice we’ve ever had behind me,” he jokes.
“These days, being a mechanic is much more about using your brain than being physical and that is becoming more true all the time with electric buses arriving into
our workshop.”
Dysons encourages women like Cobey to look at traditionally male-dominated roles in the bus industry and beyond.