Adventures with the Corporate Relations Team

Wednesday, August 5, 2020
by Owen, Roseline, Jack and Kaif - the Corporate Relations team

Hello Everyone!                                                                                      Owen

owen
Coming to you from our virtual International Study Trip course classroom, we are the Corporate Relations Team: Owen, Roseline, Jack and Kaif. Today we will be sharing our insight into a behind the scenes experience for the International Study opportunity to NYC. Our goal as a group is to ensure the students on the virtual trip meet a variety of industry professionals who will provide great insight into the everlasting effects of COVID-19. Our role within the virtual trip has not changed that much in comparison to when the trip was in-person - in fact, you could say that we have even more options now than before. Thankfully, we still have meetings and conduct debriefs with the class, however, we are no longer limited to just New York firms. We have reached out to a variety of American and Canadian firms that our peers are interested in because of their great successes thus far. Today, we will show you how we are approaching this virtual challenge and our thoughts about the opportunity that is in front of us

Roseline

roseline
Since we cannot physically travel to New York, we are trying to offer an even better virtual interview experience through a variety of strategies. Our target from the beginning was to get the majority of our interviews in NY, while trying to evenly distribute our asks according to the interests of the International Study Trip class. For example, there was a lot of interest in talking to Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE) or other sporting organizations, so our team found their leadership contact information, reached out and secured an interview. On top of this, there is a lot of interest in well-known companies such as RBC and JPMorgan. Our key differentiating strategy has been to “go big or go home”, usually directly emailing the CEO or CFO of the firm we are targeting, if we don’t already have strong alumni contacts.

                                                                                                                    Jack 

jack
With a combination of using LinkedIn and other networking tools, we have been able to secure quite a few interviews. One of the things our team is doing that is unique, is reaching out to alumni correspondents at other schools such as Laurier. This strategy allows us to leverage a greater network of Alumni to reach out to more firms that cater to our interests. To keep the class engaged, we have created polls on Slack, asking people to vote on firms or individuals they would like to meet. This helps guide our decision-making process so we can ensure everyone’s voice and opinion are heard, especially since Professor Balaban likes to remind us that it’s our trip, and we can make it whatever we want it to be! It really shows that with a positive and well written email during these crazy times, anything can happen.

Kaif

kaif
The biggest challenge for our team has been ensuring consistent communication within our processes and invitations. To combat this, we have developed a custom email template to ensure uniformity. Along with this, we maintain communication over Facebook Messenger and meetings. Moving forward we will continue to meet regularly to avoid miscommunication when working virtually!

While the trip is not what we were expecting, it is still an extremely unique opportunity to connect with our peers from different age groups, meet interesting professionals all over the world, and learn more about the opportunities that exist once we graduate. Hopefully in the near future we have the opportunity to take the trip again and fulfil our passion for travelling! Until then, we will continue to find unique meeting opportunities for the class from which we can learn and broaden our perspective.