Johnny Yeung:
My experience with initiating contact with a professional in industry
was a lot easier than I had expected. While I was at work one day
(Centre for Operations Excellence, UBC), I had heard that our Director
of Industry was a CA. I had only met him on a handful of occasions,
but I decided to send Glen Darou an email to see if he would be willing
talk about his CA experiences with me. It turns out that he was more
than happy to chat and during the conversation, he shared his
experiences of being a former Chief Financial Officer of both Shell
Canada and Teck Cominco. I learned a lot about the CA industry during
that conversation, and it only reaffirmed that becoming a CA is a career
that I would truly enjoy.
Tom Ng:
I have discussed my future career path with the IT team leader of AIC
(Asia Communication Service Corp.). We talked about the future of the
IT industry and what I need to prepare for my career. He stated that
having enough knowledge and being a hard worker is not good enough,
having the right attitude is what makes a career successful. If we
set a = 1, b = 2, c = 3 ... z = 26 and add up the letters in the word
"ATTITUDE", we will get 100, where "HARDWORK" and "KNOWLEDGE" will
only give us 98 and 96. If I have the right attitude towards my
career, I will be able to make it interesting and successful.
Daniel Chao: html
My experience in initiating professional contact in the IT industry
wasn't such difficult task for me to do. Since I was in this Leader of
Tomorrow Program. (LOT), I already have someone who is already in the
industry and also able to connect me, too. Following are some people
that I think gave me great impressions and also some good advice:
Duncan Mueller - He is my mentor from the LOT program and currently work as project manager at BayLeaf. He has been helping me in introducing me to other professionals in the IT field, helping me on how should I make that first step in the field and letting me know the most uptodate IT technology news...etc. Not only that, he has also taken me to couple seminars that are related to the IT field, and shared his experiences in different aspects of the field.
John Berti - He is the CISSP Senior Manager - Secure eBusiness Enterprise Risk Services at Deloitte & Touche. I got his contact information from one of our MSSC seminar speakers - Chris Farkas, and was able to email him to ask about some questions in information system security issues. And he was able to answer me my questions, and give me some advice on how the IT certifications differ and the significance in the field. Unfortunately, his office is in Winnipeg, therefore, I wasn't able to talk to him in person. But, email contact can be just as useful as a personal interview.
Gordon Choi: html details
After the interview was conducted, I realized that good communication
and interpersonal skills are very important. They are the necessity
for building relationships around internal (between other personnel
within the company) and external (among clients) environments. Better
communications between other personnel could lead to higher efficiency
in performing daily tasks. By performing better communication skills
with clients, I can find out what the clients really want and
enhance my strategy to achieve better customer satisfaction. I also
found that it is also necessary to develop professional
problem-solving skills that could be learnt from continuing education
and work experience, in order to advance my career.
Tam Nguyen:
Earlier this year, I was invited to a banquet held by the Vietnamese
Professional Society (VPS) in Seattle, Wash, USA. After the banquet,
I had the chance to talk to the guest speaker of the banquet, Mr. Vu,
an Investment Counsellor of A. Montag & Associcates, Inc. in Atlanta,
Georgia. Mr. Vu is also a member of the Asian Pacific Business
Relations Advising committee set up by US President Bush.
Investment is a career I would like to go into, hence having an opportunity to Mr. Vu was a good experience in developing networking skills. The talk was brief yet I had a chance to practice an essential skill in the business world. It was just a brief conversation, however, I'm now much more comfortable to introduce myself to anyone.
Diana Wong:
Having completed a co-op work term at Crystal Decisions last fall (Sept -
Dec 2001), I know that I will want to go back there after my graduation.
However, I have heard that they are more interested in Computing Science
grads, and since I am an MSSC student, this worries me. In order to find
out more about the kinds of new graduates they are looking for, and the
qualifications these new graduates will need to have, I attended their
information session held at SFU in May 2002. It brought me into contact
with Mr. Sven Gerhard, who is one of the QA managers at Crystal Decisions.
I had met him a few times while I was working there, but never had the
chance to talk with him.
I had also been wondering whether special training, such as the MSCE certification, is needed in order to work in the QA department. He told me that those certifications are nice to have, but are not necessarily necessary since he has people from a semi-technical background in his team. Because of this information, I decided to do well in my courses first, and then worry about the specialization/certification later. He asked me when will I graduate and encouraged me to contact him again by then. At the end of the talk, since he didn't have his business cards with him that day, I obtained his email address.
Quentin Kok:
Thanks to my friend Peter's referral, I had an interview with a
general manager (Peggy) at a small accounting firm. Although the firm
was just under one year old, it faced rapid expansion and needed
helpers in data entry and other clerical responsibilities.
The interview was rather informal which started with some chatting about Peter. Perhaps it was because Peggy had an assumption that Peter would only recommend quality people to his company. Then, Peggy skimmed through my resume and academic transcript. I noticed that she was more concerned about work experience than education. During our conversation regarding previous employment, she was looking for my long-term commitment to the position since training takes effort, time and money. On the other hand, I tried to convince her how my capability in mathematics skills and organization would be valuable to her company. Overall, the interview was like a negotiation between two salespeople where each puts forward their best offers in order to conduct a good trade. After approximately twenty-five minutes, we reached two conclusions. First, Peggy did not need another clerk before her business stabilizes and establish sufficient market share in her target market. Second, Peggy was not looking for a part-time employee, while I cannot commit to a full-time position in conjunction with my current university schedule.
Although I was not hired immediately, this interview earned me a good relationship with Peggy, who I though was a capable team leader, and opportunities for cooperation should follow. Two important things I learned through this interview were 1) employers try to translate your work experience and skills to their companies, and 2) employers are looking for committed employees even when they are less capable. Helping employers solving these two puzzles would improve my interview skills and chances of being hired.
Ada Ling: html details
Programming is one of my potential career paths, therefore, I contacted
Bongy, my old high-school classmate's brother, as one of my career
resources. During the
interview with Bongy, I have learned a lot about the objectives of a
Programmer. He has shared his valuable experience on both product
development and customer interactions. He also has introduced to me
his team members who handle different aspects of his project. Other
than that, Bongy directed me to published materials that have details
about today's world of programmers. I obtained much helpful and
useful information through the interview with Bongy and his team
members. Furthermore, it was an excellent chance for me to enhance my
networking skill and experience.
Simon Liu:
I attended my brother's employees gathering dinner in
March. During the dinner, I met my brother's boss, James, the manager
of the two Esso gas stations in the Lower Mainland.
He told me that one of the most important things he wanted to achieve in his gas station's internal environment is the autonomy of the employees. Additionally, he is focusing on establishing a good, long-term relation with the customers since the more gas the station sells; the more commission he earns from Esso. In Richmond, all gas stations are required to provide full service to customers. So his employees would have more opportunity to have social contact with the customers. Thus, he wants his employees to please the customer by providing extra services and more greetings and hopes that these customers will return to his station the next time they need gas.
He also pointed out that today's business environment is changing very fast. Therefore, he needed to take training courses provided by Esso to learn new management techniques and the new technology every half a year.
Pezh Samimi:
For my contact with a professional, I thought I'd get in touch with my
old manager, Michael Lam at HSBC, and ask him specifically about what
it's like being a manager of a critical team. My previous impression
of management was rather "Dilbertian", so needless to say I was fairly
surprised by the responsibilities of management. Aside from the long
hours and large knowledge base which I had learned from observation,
one of the things Michael had told which was somewhat of a surprise
was that moving up the ladder is an aggressive pursuit. In other
words, just by having the know-how and people skills and all the other
abilities required for management doesn't mean you're going to be
simply given it. You have to be aggressive in making sure you're not
overlooked and should create your own path to success.
Sean Amundsen:
During this past semester, I have considered several career options.
I have always been interested in software programming, and after
talking with representatives from several local firms, I think that
after graduation, I will be looking for employment in a consulting
firm. In particular, I have been looking very closely at Accenture
Consulting (http://www.accenture.com).
This past semester I have done some independent consulting. A friend referred me to a family friend of theirs, Greg Baresford owner of Biocompostable Technologies. We met and negotiated the terms and requirements for their first website. This was an invaluable experience, as with out too much guidance, I had to personally deal with my first client on top of my course workload at SFU. I did find the project difficult, as my ideas on what I wanted to do for Biocompostable were not the same as what they wanted. The problem stemmed from a lack of funds on their part to develop a more sophisticated site. Instead, I was asked to duplicate some preexisting print material. You can visit the two sites I did for Biocompostable technologies at http://www.biocompostable.com and http://www.biocompostable.com/Naty/Naty.htm.
Johnny Young:
The professional contact that I have developed is with one of the
three CAs at the accounting firm, for which I am doing part time
work. My direct supervisor is Suresh Desai, but I have made contact
with one of the other CAs in the firm. His name is Naresh
Desai. Recently, after participating in the seminar with the two
gentlemen from Deloitte & Touche, I have developed an interest towards
becoming a CA. From hearing their testimony, I know that I do not have
to start off with an accounting background to become a CA. Therefore,
I started asking for advice from Mr. Desai. He has told me that
becoming a CA now is very different from when he became one. He told
me that back then, you needed to take all your exams first before
applying for a position. Even after you finished your exams, you still
needed to do articles with a firm before you are accepted into the CA
profession. From what he told me, it seems that it is more convenient
for one to become a CA nowadays than before. Another thing which I
have learned from him is that being a CA exposes you to a lot more
high-profile businesses. This helps a lot with networking, as I have
met several of his clients which are all successful
professionals. This reconfirms what Chris and Patrick told us during
the seminar.
Bob Chiang: html
What I have learned from Anita Yang, the Assistant Marketing Manager
of Trend Micro Incorporated:
- Expect long hours of work. Around 13 hr per day, including Saturday.
Salary will not be proportional to the number of hours you have worked.
- Stock options are given every year. Stock options means that the
company will give you bonus in the form of company's stock. The
amount depends on your position, and performance. The stock is what
employee really interested in. Salary may not be high, but the
options you get can compensate a lot depending on the amount and
marketing value of the stock.
- People with both business and technical skills are in high demand.
Often, there is a gap between technical people and managers. Current
trend is to have a bachelor degree in science and then obtain an MBA.
People with such backgrounds usually work in technical department for a
while, then are promoted to management level later on.
- The school you are coming out of does make a difference. Larger
companies, like Trend Micro, often consider people coming out of prestige
universities with much higher priority.