business

Networking: Get to Know your Profs

Bill Garbarino and Jason Connell

The education you get from your time at college is definitely important, but remember you have other assets to help you get a job at the end of it. Your education is only one piece of the puzzle. Remember that when you graduate, you’ll be competing against hundreds of other new grads for jobs – how do you stand out? You want to make use of everything that’s available to you. One of the most under-used and greatest resources available at college is your faculty.

Your faculty comes from the industry; full-time faculty have usually been in the industry for a number of years, and part-time faculty are still in the industry. What that means is that they know people! They have industry connections that might be hiring or looking for new talent, and are in a position to connect you to those people. They’re also the people who know you best in terms of job skills. They’ve seen you grow and learn and can vouch for your skills and capabilities.

When I was in the Business – Marketing program here at Algonquin, I took advantage of the fact that I wasn’t in a massive lecture hall where the prof didn’t even know my name. I made a conscious effort to get to know my faculty (and it turns out they were pretty awesome people), and get them to know me. That meant participating in class, and talking with them on a break or before/after class. Once I had built up that relationship, my profs would start sending job opportunities my way. In fact, my first internship was sent my way by my program coordinator. That was a great experience for me, and all because I took the time to get to know my faculty.

It doesn’t stop there either. I started as a Student Ambassador doing tours of the college before making my way to my current full-time job. Know how I found out about the tours gig? One of the profs at the college knew I was looking for a job, heard about the Student Ambassador position and let me know about it. That was my stepping-stone to a job I absolutely love, and all because my prof gave me the heads up.

So work hard while you’re at college, do your best and rock your studies, but don’t forget the brilliant people who are teaching you. You never know, you just might have them to thank for a job you love.

AC Biz School: Back Where I Started

Many years ago (I won’t say exactly how many) I was a student at the School of Business in the Business-Marketing program. I spent most of my waking hours in B Building, stressing over group work and exams, celebrating kick-ass presentations and papers, and developing life-long friendships. I loved my time at AC (or the Gonq as we affectionately called it) and I left armed with the knowledge, skills and experience to go out and pursue my dream career in Marketing.

After I graduated I decided to take advantage of the College’s transfer agreements and further my education at University. I’ll be honest – I went to Uni mostly because I thought I “should.” Out of my group of friends from Algonquin, some decided to go this route but many did not. Years later, we are all enjoying successful careers in Marketing. Depending on where you want to go in your career, a degree might help or might even be necessary, but the 83% employment rate of the School of Business grads speaks for itself. Our programs are designed to prepare you for career success.

When I graduated with my degree I was lucky enough to get a job in marketing right away. I was the Marketing Manager for a local distance-education career-training school. Being thrust into that role right out of school was a challenge but one that I welcomed. As I started to get my feet wet, I was amazed to see how much of what I learned at Algonquin came into play. All of the knowledge and applied learning the College gave me helped me do my job, and do it well.

I stayed in that role for three years until I had my daughter. (Isn’t she adorable?!)

Then I decided to step back from my career for a few years to focus on family. Sounds awesome right? Not entirely. While I loved being with my daughter, I really MISSED working. (I might be a wee bit crazy!) So I decided to launch a small online business on Etsy.com. I made and sold personalized picture frames.

My marketing and business background served me well in this little enterprise. It was only supposed to be a little pet project to keep my mind from going mushy but soon I found myself shipping out multiple orders every day, to customers all over the world. In two years I made and sold over 1500 frames. It was a fantastic experience and it gave me the challenge and sense of accomplishment I had been missing.

Then finally the time came for my daughter to go to school and for me to go back to work. I was so excited to see what the next phase of my career would be. One day while scrolling through a job posting website, I saw these words:

Marketing Officer, School of Business, Algonquin College

I wanted to yell “Oooh! Oooh! Pick me! Pick me!” How perfect would I be for this job? How perfect would this job be FOR ME? To be able to go back to Algonquin after all these years and help promote the School of Business – the School that gave me such an amazing education and start to my career – seemed like a dream. And luckily for me, the dream became a reality.

I am so thrilled to be working at the School of Business. Algonquin College is an amazing community and I feel very proud, and very lucky, to be back where I started.