careers at ThinkerTank

research analyst

Part time, 15 hours a week, for a final-year student.

ThinkerTank is a trend intelligence and strategic foresight consultancy based in Sydney. We work out what is coming for our clients, and what they should do about it. Our clients include universities, super funds, banks, member associations, and government departments.

We are a small team. That matters for this role, because the research you do goes out the door with your fingerprints on it rather than disappearing into a process.

what the job is

We are looking for a final-year student to join us as a Research Analyst for 15 hours a week. You will work fixed days, and we set those days around your class timetable. We reset them each semester.

The rhythm of the job follows our research delivery weeks. Some weeks are about scanning and gathering. Others are about pulling a report together against a deadline. You will feel the difference, and you will get good at both.

You will work alongside Tom, our Head of Research and Growth, and Ben, our founder. Nobody here is too senior to sit down and mark up your draft with you.

what you will do

• Scan news, journals, industry publications, and social platforms for early signals of change
• Write short, clear summaries of what you find and why it matters
• Run desk research for client briefs, keynotes, and trend reports
• Fact-check claims, chase original sources, and keep our referencing tight
• Help build client reports and briefing decks
• Take notes in client workshops and turn them into something people will actually read
• Keep our research library organised so nothing gets lost

who we are looking for

You are in the final year of a communications degree, or something close to it. Journalism, media, public relations, and marketing students all tend to do well here.

Beyond that, we care about three things. You write clearly, which is harder and rarer than it sounds. You read outside your own interests. And you can be trusted with a deadline without being chased.

You do not need foresight experience. Nobody has it at your stage. We will teach you the method.

You will need valid working rights in Australia. International students are welcome to apply. At 15 hours a week, this role sits inside the standard student visa work limit.

what you get

The work is paid and it is real. Your research will turn up in reports that clients pay for and in keynotes delivered to a few hundred people at a time.

You will be mentored directly by our Head of Research and Growth, and you will learn a foresight method you can take anywhere. For the right person, there is a full-time role here after you graduate.

If your degree includes a work-integrated learning or internship subject, we are happy to sign off on the paperwork and supervise the placement.

practical details

Hours

15 hours per week

Days

Fixed days, set around your class timetable and reset each semester

Location

Our Sydney CBD office

Pay

$33 per hour plus superannuation

Reports to

Tom Mooney, Head of Research and Growth

Type

Part time and ongoing, with the potential of full-time work after you graduate

Start

September 2026, with some flexibility around your exam timetable

Applications close

Monday 31 August 2026, 11.59pm

how to apply

Two steps, and the first one takes about two minutes.

1. Fill in the application form below. It asks who you are, what you are studying and why this interests you.
2. We will email you straight away asking for your CV and a cover letter of no more than one page. Reply with both attached and your application is in.

Your cover letter should answer two questions. Why do trends and foresight interest you? And what makes you a strong writer and researcher, with one example?

Shortlisted candidates will do a short paid research task, then meet Tom and Ben for a conversation. We will tell you either way.

We welcome applications from students of all backgrounds. If you need an adjustment at any point in the process, tell Tom and we will sort it out. Questions before you apply are welcome too, at [email protected].

general application

We are in a growth year, which means the next role tends to exist a few weeks before it gets advertised.

Small teams hire differently. We do not run a rolling recruitment machine, and we rarely have three neat vacancies sitting open at once. What we have instead is a growing client list, more work than the current team can absorb, and a habit of building a role around the right person when they turn up.

That only works if we know you exist. So this is a real application, not a suggestion box.

work we tend to hire for

• Research and analysis, from signal scanning through to the argument a client actually acts on
• Writing and editorial, including reports, trend briefs and the newsletter
• Facilitation and workshop design, for rooms that need to leave with a decision
• Marketing, content and community, so the thinking finds the people it is for
• Client delivery and operations, which is the quiet reason any of the above lands on time
• Design and data visualisation, because a chart that explains itself is worth a page of prose

If your skill set is adjacent to that list rather than on it, apply anyway and make the case. We have hired people whose CVs did not obviously say foresight.

shapes this can take

Full time, part time, contract or fixed-term project work. Sydney based or remote within Australia. We have made all four work, and the form below asks which of them suit you so we are not guessing.

Career changers, people coming back from a break and students in their final year are all welcome. What matters is the thinking, not the tidiness of the timeline that produced it.

what to tell us

Skip the part where you describe your degree back to us. We can read a CV. The useful version answers three things.

1. What you would add here that we do not already have
2. The kind of work you want more of, and the kind you want less of
3. One thing you have noticed lately that most people scrolled past

That third one is the bit we read first. It is also the closest thing we have to an entrance exam.

what happens next

Every application gets read by a human, usually Tom. We keep applications for twelve months and we go to them first when something opens, which is genuinely how two of the last hires happened.

We will not pretend everyone hears back with a role. We will tell you when there is nothing, rather than leaving you refreshing your inbox.