Student-taught business skills

In an ever-changing marketplace, the skills that students need to land a job might not be what they needed a year ago. At the Ted Rogers School of Management, the Business Career Hub (BCH) hosts a constantly evolving series of bootcamps to teach students the technical skills they need to succeed.

What makes the bootcamps unique: they are led by students.

“It is fundamental to the culture of the Ted Rogers School, and it’s what makes us special,” says Allen Goss, associate dean, students at TRSM. “Ideas and initiatives don’t always have to be driven by the dean’s office. The energy and the excitement comes from the students. So, it’s absolutely critical that it’s the students who run this.”

The bootcamps emerged from consultations between the BCH and potential co-op employers, who identify technical skills that aren’t necessarily covered in the curriculum. “We work hard to make sure our curriculum reflects the needs of industry,” says Goss. “The problem is that their needs change quickly, and the things they want right now might not be the things they want six months, nine months, two years from now.”

Recognizing the need for bespoke, just-in-time professional training, the BCH held its first student-led Excel workshop last year—and with minimal promotion, filled the room. From there, the bootcamps have grown into a suite of offerings, covering everything from PowerPoint and professional communications, to Argus certification for commercial real estate and Bloomberg for capital markets. In the last year, 2,000 students have participated in 85 workshops. The courses are vetted by faculty and employers, but the student-to-student connection is key.

“I see it repeatedly in the feedback forms,” says Nelufur Bhasin, manager, career preparation at TRSM. “Students say, ‘I felt so much more at ease knowing it wasn’t an employer looking over my shoulder, or someone external to the school recognizing I didn’t have a skill set, and I was learning from a peer.’ There’s a lot of power when you see a full class, and a student is facilitating, and they’re learning from each other. It’s really a community of learning.”

One student who can attest to this is Abdullah Waqar, a third-year accounting co-op student, whose first eight-month placement was in project delivery financial management at Bell Canada. “I started in the first week and was given this task to do multiple pivot tables on a new client,” says Waqar. “Had I not taken all four levels of the accounting and finance Excel bootcamps, I definitely would not have been able to do that task. I was able to do the task very well, fast, and efficiently. My managers were impressed because I had never worked a job in an office before, but I knew how to do these things.”

Waqar is now in his second co-op placement as a mergers and acquisitions analyst at Deloitte Canada. Looking back at the bootcamps, he says, “Not only do they teach you the actual technical skills, but when you start your job, it also helps you with your social skills, your self-esteem, your confidence, your ability to network.

“If you come into the workplace having this background knowledge, you’ll do the job well, but you’ll also feel well. You’ll know what you’re talking about. You’ll know you can do the work and you don’t have to ask for help much. It gives you that confidence.”

Goss notes that the bootcamps have dovetailed perfectly with TRSM’s co-op program. “The co-op students going are able to take advantage of these workshops before they go out on their first placement, which gives them a competitive advantage when they’re in the workplace with other co-op students from other universities.

“Employers only care about results, and they wouldn’t be hiring our students if our students couldn’t perform. We have an over 95 percent placement rate for our co-op program. If we were putting out students who didn’t have the skills to be able to add value to business, they wouldn’t come back and hire them. And we never have to sell a Ted Rogers co-op student twice.”

To learn more about opportunities at TRSM’s Business Career Hub, including co-op placements, go to https://www.torontomu.ca/trsm-careers. Contact the Business Career Hub for info about fall bootcamps.