Western Seminar Review

Mar.21, 2015 – CCPAA successfully held the first seminar, Professional Career Development, in Western University for student members. It was a milestone in CCPAA university program development.

Many Students are confused about career paths and the way to looking for a job. Therefore, CCPAA invited 3 speakers to share their experience and tips with students.

The first speaker was Agnes Yan, a tax auditor from CRA. She underlined that “Opportunities are always for people who are ready” to encourage students to get prepared as early as possible. Although accounting firms are highly competitive and have heavy workload, they are great training schools for students, great places to start a career. Not only can you learn a lot new knowledge in a short period, but you can also challenge personal limits.

Amy Xu, a senior account from Deloitte LLP, shared her experience as the second speaker. Here are the main topics she covered: career paths in public accounting companies, professional designation challenges after graduation and secrets in the hidden job market. She suggested that students should acquire transformable skills in the university, such as leadership and communication skills, which you can acquire from extracurricular activities. Meanwhile, students should work harder on studies, which was in a form of high performed GPA and this will be a main strength in competition.  Also, she emphasized the importance of networking, which can be a shortcut to get interview opportunity.

The third speaker, Kaitelynn Ling, a student from Richard Ivey Business School, introduced her experiences of how she excelled in networking events and got the one-year internship from Deloitte LLP finally.  Specific goals and communicating with confidence are 2 of the most important factors in networking. More importantly, to impress recruiters, students must keep in mind that follow-up after the events is necessary.

All speakers spared no efforts to share their experiences and helped students to know more about future opportunities; speakers’ outstanding speeches together with volunteers’ efforts contribute to the success of the seminar.