The Career Development Centre (CDC) is one of the most integral parts of the machine that is the Schulich School of Business. We all recognize, appreciate, and enjoy the hard work that the CDC puts into planning & executing events for the Schulich community, but we do not fully realize the value the CDC brings to Schulich with their expertise. For the most part of my first year, the extent to which I knew about the CDC was largely getting resume formats from their website and registering for events. I had not realized the advising role of the CDC until I decided to get my resume read over by one of the CDC advisers. I thought I had it done pretty well… didn’t seem like it after the appointment though.

My objectives for the appointment were to get some constructive feedback about my resume, along with some tips on how to make it better. Here’s my visit there, in a timeline format:

So it’s 2:30 PM on a Thursday, and I show up to the CDC for my appointment.

2:35 PM – I meet with the advisor and after friendly exchanges, we start talking about school, and general stuff.

2:40 PM – As our conversation flows, the advisor asks me about my intended specialization (finance), and why I would like to specialize in it?

2:45 PM – After I get stuck on WHY I would like to specialize in the particular field, we have a lengthy and detailed chat about the accounting and finance industries & jobs, before moving on to comparing careers in the two fields.

Now what I would like to point out here is the wealth of information possessed by the advisor, and how easily he got it across to me. He knew very particular details about the industry, and provided me with in depth information about them. We not only talked about the industry in general, but also the jobs and job requirements in the industries. The job hours, the stress, networking, the internships required to break into the industry, and all that stuff!

3:10 PM – He shows me the CDC website and all the industry detail that is on the website (I never knew about this. Maybe I should visit the CDC website more often.) He also gave me a couple more websites to look into and learn about careers and all that stuff!

3:15 PM – We move onto my resume, and well….let’s just say I have to come up with an entirely new resume now. The pain of knowing how horribly you have done your resume 🙁 Well it’s worth it in the end I guess.

3:25 PM – I walk out of the CDC with my mind completely blown with the amount of information it had to process…

But honestly, it was some very critical and constructive feedback, with some really good tips about what the employers are looking for, and what they want to see in a resume. Not just that, but also how I can reformat it, and make it better. As well as, what additions would make my resume better! So no more rookie mistakes…

In the end, I would just like to say, most of us will probably not realize the importance of the CDC until our third or fourth years, but it’s not bad to get a head start right?  They are very helpful and informative. So go and book an appointment to see an advisor, and get your resume destroyed! (I’m just kidding about the resume destroying part… maybe)

P.S. – Sorry to all the CDC advisors for the increase in appointments coming their way.

Abbas Hasnain, BBA ’16