Here’s the story on why it ended up being my minor. After taking all my classes during the first year in Business, I realized that I really enjoyed my Business Law class, Finance is not my strong suit and I liked Management Accounting thanks to my professor at the time. So I stuck with the major I signed up for prior to business school and switched my minor from Finance to Accounting. I really enjoyed taking the Management Accounting stream of courses to complete my minor, but I have a feeling that that might make it more challenging for me in terms of job applications.

Now with these very few job applications available, I need to make sure that I’m still a big load of awesome, if you know what I mean. Previous Co-op experience – check! Volunteer experiences that are current – check! A decent GPA standing – check! Resume updated and formatted – check! And the final piece to make my application package look catchy at first glance, the cover letter, is still work-in-progress.

I think of all the documents needed for a job application, I actually stress out about the cover letter more than anything. The fact that Accounting is my minor and not my major like many of my fellow undergrads make me uneasy about being considered in many placements that are offered.

From my very frequent visits to our co-op coordinators in the Business Careers Services office, here are the three main themes of their advice whenever I ask them to scrutinize my cover letters so I can put my best foot forward:

-       Grammar and tense consistency: Unfortunately word processing programs have spell check, but nothing remotely close to a grammar police. When the first few sentences in a paragraph using present tense suddenly shifts to sentences in the past tense and vice versa, the flow of events gets a bit more confusing to the reader, who will only quickly scan it for 30 seconds. It’s okay to use all past tense for verbs even you are currently doing the position right now; you can save that tidbit for the resume and the interview.

-       Personalization to the company: There has to be a balance with the phrasing so that it doesn’t look that you copied their mission statement word by word, but you are still telling them that you know a bit about the company. I think this is the main part that I have to work on still. It’s a trial and error process, and having someone else read it is definitely valuable to see if you have that personal touch to the letter.

-       Relevance of your skills to what they are looking for: Being in the Cooperative Education Program, by default you already are a great student with a lot of skills, a lot of experience and a lot of enthusiasm. Since a cover letter is short, make your current skills stand out in a few words that will fit what the company is looking for. Say you worked in a job where you did a lot of independent research projects. If one company says they are looking for self-motivated people, point out the part where you accomplished your projects with your own discipline and initiative, if they say they want research experience, modify your statement a little bit so that the fact that you did research stands out a bit more. Same thing goes with resumes. That is why it is always handy to have your current job descriptions right beside the description of the placement available when you are drafting your application package.

While doing this, I am also currently doing an assessment of my position as requested by my supervisor. It is a pilot position so my evaluation will play a big role in terms of what the next-in-line person will do. It makes me realize that the job has so much more potential to it in terms of what it can do for the students that we serve, and now that some routine has been establish I hope that there is more opportunity for it to grow and expand.

Good luck with the job searches and cross fingers for me as well!

Cheers,

Giselle

Notes from my weekly meetings go to this pile. I wonder if this pile is actually as big as my blog posts if I print them?

Hooray for the 25the Blog! Also, I would like to extend my welcome cheers to Michelle, our new blogger who is currently on a placement with Deloitte! I didn’t get a chance to know for sure if this is your first work placement, but whether it is or not, I think that this blog will remind you and all our fellow students on a placement of the things we have to do as required by the Cooperative Education Program.

I have to admit I’m suffering from a bit of a writer’s block right now. It’s not that I have no idea what to share, because there’s so many things going on in the office right now that I really wanted to share, but I seem to have a more difficult time arranging my thoughts. It’s been many months ago since I have done this, so I decided to reuse the tried and true method of recollecting what you have done recently in your placement: the WKEXP 911 way – the reflective journal.

Here it is, a recollection of what happened during the last 1 and a half weeks.

What I did:
I started to finalize more details about the retreat that I am planning. It is my first time planning an event that involves students of this number and that runs all day. I did a lot of research of  how the past years went, gave suggestions on modifying the event details and introduced new ideas such as creating a theme for the event. In my experience, retreats or conferences usually have a theme and it was accepted as a good idea. In my department, we also are in the next step of developing the promotional/educational videos of my department. I learned a few basics of Imovie and have been doing basic editing and cutting of the raw footage since last week. There are also the routine activities which include organizing the details for the monthly meetings of two groups of student representatives that I organize. My supervisor also asked me to review some documents for the department which will be used for both the short term and long term.

What I have learned in this time frame:
I have learned how to do more ways of formal writing when I wrote the letters of invitation to prospective speakers in the retreat. I learned the fundamentals of IMovie, which I found as a definitely better program for movie editing 101 compared to Windows Movie Maker. I had an opportunity to see through the documents that I reviewed how the planning documents for a department are created. I imagine it takes observation of the projects of the department, the rate and timeliness by which they are accomplished, plans for future projects and the capacity of doing routine tasks and new projects.

What I have learned about myself personally and professionally:
In this position, I am becoming more comfortable sharing ideas that the department have not considered before. As I have been multi-tasking on many projects in this position since I started last May, I did not feel as flustered anymore with deadlines or when something does not work our exactly as planned.

That is actually how I wrote my draft for my reflective journals last summer. For students in their first placement, at this point in time you are in your third or fourth reflective journal entry. There were times last summer where I feel like the week flew just too fast and I don’t know what to write. It took several journals to learn that there is always something new that you have learned, even if it is something like being better at some skill or applying a skill that you are already good at in a different manner.

I hope that you have a good rest of the week and don’t forget to submit your outlines and goals for your WKEXP reports!

Cheers,

Giselle

Best buddies in business are a must-have. They will be the only ones who will laugh with you about a joke on Debits and Credits. 

Hi everyone! I’m excited to blogging all about my life over the next few months! I guess I should introduce myself before I start ranting, eh? I’m a 4th year student, but it’s my 3rd year in the BCom program, and, like a bajillion other students here, I’m an Accounting major. I’m also currently on a co-op term with Deloitte in Edmonton. During my last weekend before starting my first client file, I was volunteering at JDC West. It was the craziest, most amazing conferences I’ve ever witnessed. Everyone was so pumped up and everything was pulsating with school spirit! I was a Social volunteer and the Social OCs (Organizing Committee) had warned us all beforehand to ‘Be prepared to not sleep at all.’ Okay, well, I thought they were exaggerating like when people say ‘You’ll be pulling 12 hours days, everyday, for busy season at a Big 4 firm.” And, they definitely were not exaggerating (and neither is anyone telling you about the 12 hour days, but we’ll get to that later…)! I don’t even think my eyes were blinking at the same rates by Sunday afternoon! JDC was an adventure, that’s for sure. But you know what? You’re young now; only our 20-something bodies can handle that much abuse over 3 days, so try it out and you won’t leave disappointed (just exhausted). Holy smokes though, my first day after that weekend was brutal! They had trained us a bit before, but it’s hard to grasp anything until you start doing it. It’s like Accounting class; I really don’t understand anything until I’ve done some practice questions. My first engagement was intense; long days and lots of confusion on my part. I’m so thankful for everyone else in my team though; I’d be goner without them! Everyone in an accounting firm knows what it’s like to go into their first audit, not knowing anything, which is why everyone is so willing to answer questions. And 12-14 hours isn’t really quite as bad as it sounds. It’s not like I work until late night, only until 8 or 10, which is the same hours I’d have if I worked a part-time job on weekdays after a day full of classes. This past week with another client file hasn’t been as long of days, but it was tough juggling two engagements. It takes a lot of prioritizing and managing my time. Everyday I’m learning something new, which makes everyday interesting so far! I’ll keep you all posted on my next few adventures; until then, have some happy working/studying!

- Michelle

Speaking of freeze, two weeks ago was the Antifreeze event here at the SU. It was funny how I managed to get more caught up with SU events by working over here. It was great to see many groups of students with competitive and spirit during the first week of the semester. You can check out pictures of the event on their Facebook page.

 “I only have 120 days left on my terms and I’d like to get a lot done”

-       Excerpt from an email I received from our SU Vice President Academic while discussing our end-of-year activities here in our jobs.

Actually now, if I did my math right, it’s actually just 100 days more before our terms are over! I actually feel the same way. A little excited, dreading it a little bit and there’s the pressure that you want to accomplish as much as you could in your job. For our fellow students on placements, how do you feel as soon as you finished 2/3 of your time in your placement?

Remember the report that I was talking about last October? Well, I just finished it a few days ago. I do admit I am very relieved that it was over. For a while I also felt a little bad about requesting an extension of the deadline (from December 31, 2011 to January 13, 2012), but I think it was worth it. The collaborative effort was not as extensive as I hoped it would; I primarily interviewed the other people once and had to do more of the analysis on my own. I sure learned a lot in terms of writing a report, especially making recommendations based on a situational analysis. Another thing I learned, finishing a report on Friday night is not fun at all but not worrying about a report over the weekend is a great upside.

While for the other research project that I am working on, the interaction with my partner is also not as much but I think the main reason is the way we split up our tasks. That being said, I was very excited when two of the universities have contacted me back for clarifications and confirmations. As for the French Universities, there is no progress yet since I do have to wait for my backup for translations. Well, as the old adage says, patience is a virtue.

In terms of job search updates, still there’s not much luck for me still as most of the placements uploaded are out of town. One of the things that students looking for a Spring/Summer placement have to consider is about taking classes during their placement. For me, if I wanted to graduate within my target date, I need to take one course in the spring, one in the summer and a full course load in the fall term. As for the conditions of the Co-op program, students are allowed to take one course per term. After my visit with an advisor, some of the options that she recommended are:

1-    Night Classes

2-    Distance Classes

3-    Individual Research Project

Different factors have to be considered such as:

1-    Available space in your electives

2-    Transportation to make sure you won’t be late for your night classes after getting off from your work placement

3-    Time commitment of each both in class and in terms of readings projects and homework

Spring and summer classes have a different timeline in them where you have to spend more time a week for each class. I have never considered taking research project at all but the prospect of working closely with a professor for research seems interesting. Six weeks might be too short for a research project, but it is definitely an option for taking a course in a different setting, regardless if you are in a placement that term or not.

Spring and Summer registration opens in February 15 and there are many placements that are loaded right now. Good luck with your job search and class searches and I hope you’re all enjoying the second week back to school.

-Giselle

I’m still working on the same few projects that I left last December. One of them is in the beginning phase, and now to move forward I started to contact the Students’ Unions (or equivalent) in Universities across Canada. I did hit one major roadblock though; I can’t speak or write a single word in French! When my research partner and I split up the universities to contact, I ended up getting two from Quebec. Darn for me not knowing French! At least one of my bosses offered to help me contact them by him sending a message in my behalf. It was a relief but it was indeed slightly frustrating that I am not able to do it. I have always had second thoughts about taking introduction to French courses on campus, fearing it will ruin my GPA. I suppose I am naturally bilingual since I speak Filipino since childhood, but I am still not sure about my abilities to learn a language in a formal setting. Maybe I should consider using some of my seven free elective spots for this purpose.

Moral of the story: try to learn it! It could come in handy when you least expected it especially in Canada. Also, in jobs where it is not an absolute necessity, it could come out as a skill that really stands out. That’s how I view my bosses right now who are very capable in French communication. It is not limited to learning French as well.

Last week a large part of our weekly meeting was focused on making a tagline as a part of our re-branding process. Marketing is waiting for us to give them a new tagline to include in the new logo (which looks really awesome in its first draft). After twenty minutes of bouncing words and phrases that still didn’t sound quite right, we decided to continue searching on our own time for the current week. To compensate for my lack of natural ability for these things, I am trying to make up through research for tips on how companies with memorable taglines do it. I do hope that I can have a Eureka moment by the end of the week, not by dreaming it as suggested since I don’t remember anything when I wake up the next day.

The New Year also caused a big shift in my resume as I have gained a few more volunteer positions and have to end some of them. I just came back for the Co-op office this morning to have my resume reviewed again after I have done these changes. I was reminded that with the 30 second scan that employers usually do, the transferable skills should jump out and not the specific tasks that you do in either an employment or volunteer position. With that in mind, I’m hoping to revise it again so that I can start applying for those positions that I just found on Placepro yesterday.

I hope you have a good week settling back to your routines. For students currently in a placement, I encourage you to share a part of your experience here by contacting CESA so you can start blogging. I’ll bet many students will be looking forward to you sharing your experience and it’s a great way to reflect on your experience and improve communications skills (isn’t that one major thing that employers actually look for?)

- Giselle

Here at my desk, there are still a few research projects that I am working on and I’m hoping that I can get much of it done within the next week. Just this morning, my department also just had a meeting with Marketing to look into the progress of our re-branding for our department and there had been really good progress so far. I’m looking forward to our new logo being finalized so that I can continue with the outreach projects that are already lined up for the New Year.

Apart from this job, which in my mind is classified as “school activity”, I also am still working part-time at Future Shop cell phone department. It’s more of a necessity than preference because unfortunately I do need to have more financial resources than what the SU provides in my paycheck to meet my needs.

This season is the busiest time for retail. For the past few years that I’m working at Future Shop I usually work full time whenever I’m not in school. The pay is great once you learn the ropes of competitive commission sales. Several times now during the past few months my managers there keep on asking me if and when I will be able to work more days and hours since “they miss me” and I do a decent job there. Whenever one of them do say that, I always respond in a jokingly manner:

“Awww man, I’d love to, but I have a year-long agreement with them (Students Union)! And besides, I learn things there that I will never learn from here.”

And that is totally not far from the truth.

There are of course many skills that I have gained from working in retail such a customer service skills, conflict resolution and communication skills especially on the telephone. That is on top of learning how to stand for hours at a time. Here at the Students Union I learned how to continue working while sitting for the same time without being restless! Well, there’s more than that. My professional writing has improved significantly due to the fact that I write documents and reports more often that what is required in my classes. I had an opportunity to learn how fellow students participate and contribute in the university experience of their peers either through representing them, providing services or influencing decision makers. I also managed to discover more events and activities on campus that I haven’t noticed before. Once I come back in January, I will definitely watch some of the AntiFreeze events!

Well, I better get back to writing my report. I’m not looking forward to working on Boxing Day but the next new days off after that would be nice. Thanks Students’ Union.

-Giselle

“We’re halfway done! After only six more months, your gig here is up!” My supervisor had brought this up many times this month, both in subtle ways and a very explicit way when we had our meeting to plan for the next six months. Whenever she does, I give her a face of both amazement and mock horror with eyebrows raised, eyes wide and my mouth forming an O, and we laugh it off for a minute. I can’t believe that I have been in this placement for six months! It’s incredible. I feel like it’s a lot of time yet so little as well. I can’t help but wonder, if this is how it feels with a year-long work term with the Students’ Union, how much faster would it feel for the other placements that are just eight or even four months long?

My fall school break was unfortunately cut short because I had to come to work here on Thursday. Bummer! But that’s ok since I did manage to get caught up on work. I was greeted by a playlist of Rent, the Musical and it did cheer met up a little. Our office is the only one open in our section and I have to admit, it was actually a little creepy looking down the hallway, where the lights don’t even work. I know it’s past Halloween, but I can’t help but remember Amanda’s recent stories on how SUB (and other buildings on campus) is haunted in one way or another.

“Five hundred fifty five thousand six hundred minutes, How do you measure a year in the life?” – Rent the musical

How indeed? I think I prefer using the word “evaluate” rather than “measure” and I believe that having a longer time than most in a work placement is a good opportunity to have really meticulous self-evaluations and watch progress that gradually come out. Below are some of the things that came out of this mid-year evaluation for myself as a young professional, taken from both formal evaluation means and some self-reflection:

• I need to work a bit on assertiveness, particularly on the follow-up that I need to receive before I can continue a project. It might be a bit challenging to find a balance between being accommodating and assertive, but it will definitely be very important especially in working at the entry level which will definitely happen at the start of my career. Well, I do want my boss to look into my projects and concerns at a timely manner.
• It turns out that I am a team player, even with the small team that we actually have. I’m interested to see in the future how I would be able to deal with a team with more people and more dynamics.
• In my position, both my supervisor and I discovered that I’m interested more with outreach projects than research. Something for me to keep in mind in my actual career search when I read job responsibilities.

If I were to add something in my job responsibilities right now, I wanted to add “to make a difference by encouraging the students we serve to be more actively involved so that they can make a powerful difference within their capacity” or something to that extent. It’s what I have observed as the overarching theme of everything I do from organizing the meetings for these student reps to get together, to making resources for them to gain important skills, to planning for recruitment and outreach. Will I be able to actually add this or maybe just tell it to the new person it I have the chance to train him or her? We’ll just have to see I guess.

Hopefully you take time in your placements to ask how much you have improved as a young professional and become able and ready before even graduating.

I’m off to hand in my work term report. Make sure you pass it before the deadline too.

-Giselle

My Potential Career Path - who knows where and how I'll go through it.

Just like the complicated flowcharts that I did have to make in high school.

Talking to my co-op coordinator during the site visit made me realize the same thing that I told her last time, that I’m still not sure on what exactly do I want to do upon graduation. What I know for sure though, is that I wanted to have my final placement in an entirely different environment and in a different field. I’m really hoping that I find an Accounting placement since it is my minor. It would be helpful for me to know if I really like it or not so that this career decision making might get better though the process of elimination.

Through the TASTE program by the BSA, I had a chance to meet with two industry professionals with a fellow student during the week. It was an enlightening experience to hear the various backgrounds of both the corporate hosts and my fellow student who actually is a little older and more experienced from running a franchise. What I found more fascinating is how they got there, hence the flowchart imagery. It’s not every day that I hear about someone who for example, have been involved in the Arts for many years, took an MBA and now is an Auditor. Another one of the hosts pointed out that all she knew was she wanted to take Business. One opportunity after another just came out and she grabbed it, taking her to different places and giving her such an enriched experience. It seems like not knowing what to do upon graduation is not a terrible thing after all. It can encourage you to just let things happen, explore and expect the unexpected.

They also encouraged us to gain an opportunity to work in the three main sectors: Government, Private and Not-for-profit – and another one that they added: Academia. They pointed out that working in only one sector would make anyone think through that one particular perspective. I realized now that as a person pursuing a career, it is also important to gain an enriched and balanced perspective of how organizations and people work. This perspective will be helpful in evaluating our decisions and interpreting issues both in work and personal lives.

I still wonder, all these reflection and experience, with co-op and networking and clubs, they focus on either helping me in my career decisions or gain the skills necessary for them. How does someone’s personal life fit in then? And while contemplating this question, I also contemplate how I will end up filling my version of said flowchart above. I guess I have to get to step 1 first – finishing my degree, (and doing the things in between such as getting involved, getting informed and gaining work experience) before I can start figuring it out.

- Giselle

Panic attack number 1- I have overlooked an important logistical detail for two important monthly meetings I’m organizing – the availability of the Chair, of all people! At times, I actually hide his calendar because whenever I see all his colored blocks of appointments, one after the other, I sometimes wonder how he keeps his sanity! It seems like the habit bit me back this time.

While thinking several things – terrible things that may happen which could either be a rescheduled meeting but with only half the attendees making it, or not having a meeting at all, I informed him about the situation. As it turns out, running the meetings on the most voted-on meeting date and time is still workable for him. Thank goodness.

Panic attack number 2- I think I just got the most intimidating question here in my placement so far.

“What exactly have you learned over the course of your degree?”

How did I feel? Look at picture above again.

I somehow feel that given the perception about my major not leading into any particular career path, I really can’t share anything valuable or useful in a very tangible sense. I just stated what I remember at least in my BLAW classes and the nature of how we discuss material. I shared about corporate governance and bankruptcy, secured transactions and personal property, international transactions and trade, and how we used real cases to analyze how the laws are applied. I shared about the Business Economics classes I am taking so far and an overview of what I have learned in my Accounting classes.

As it turns out, she asked me this question as she is curious as to what my undergrad program is like and because she wanted to know if, based on what I learned in class, I’m interested in taking up another project where my knowledge will come in handy. I’ll be working with other staff with business-related degrees – we’ll be like a B. Com powerhouse! An HR Major, a Finance Major, and a BLAW Major with a bit of Accounting (me). I’m really excited about the details of this project and how I can apply my learning in a real sense at last.

Lesson 1 – Things work out in the end. Many times in a stressful situation I forget about something as simple, and as real as this. It’s all about staying calm, admitting my fault, and focusing on fixing the problem.

Lesson 2 – Sometimes, as a co-op student, you end up feeling that you can’t do much; that since you’ll be there for a short amount of time, the responsibilities that you have are really entry-level. What’s important to remember is not to underestimate what you can contribute towards the operations of your department and your organization.

- Giselle

“You get to be the pioneer for this job, there’s something really valuable about developing something from basically very little or nothing. That’s really cool.”

As per required for this second work term, I’m supposed to make a transition document for the future Student Governance Officer to use. My actual required reports right now is a “What I wish I knew” report and it helps me create the theme of this require Co-op report. It dawned upon me that I barely had any past reference whatsoever. I did realize that it makes this position both challenging and fun. I remember being told that this position has a lot of ambiguity in it, which I find an advantage. It’s given me the opportunity to explore on my own and not to hesitate to ask for help, make mistakes or suggest unique-sounding ideas or methods.

Creating this system of internal knowledge transfer for the very first time requires attention to detail, constant evaluation of every tasks and a memory of what went well and what to improve on. Easier said than done, especially the part when I’m trying to remember how the orientation weeks went back in May. I also don’t want to sound that I’m being very particular on how to do every single detail because people have different styles of performing in the same position. It’s all about giving this future SGO a balance of having the proper and complete tools to use and room to explore how to use them without compromising timeliness and quality.

On Tuesday, we had a shopping trip to the Imaginus poster sale in the Dinwoodie Lounge. I have always enjoyed browsing through the posters, recognizing both the ones I keep on seeing during the past years and a few updated ones. I got these posters for my office and strategically placed them so that if I need a break from my computer screen, I can simple look up at them and appreciate either the kitten or Dalai Lama’s words:

Although I have to admit, my supervisor did a great job in picking this one.

- Giselle