Gabriela is a career advisor and responsible for alumni relations at EADA Careers department, a personalized service that EADA offers as added value to all participants. In her role, she is also involved with Alumni relations as Alumni are key to supporting career opportunities for current participants. We wanted to interview her to get to know more about her work and specifically about what is done in EADA Careers to get students to make the most of their EADA experience.
What motivates you the most about working as a career advisor?
A continuous interaction with hundreds of people from different countries and cultures is what I enjoy the most. I have been working as an advisor for more than 10 years and celebrating the success of our students is satisfying. Every year is different, and every group is different, so it is a continuous learning and growth for me as well.
What is the role of the EADA Career department? To what extent is it involved in students' orientation?
100% involved in student’s orientation. The personal touch that EADA offers in all the areas and departments I think is what makes the difference. Our focus is always our students. We want them to feel secure and with access to resources to guarantee their success. There is also a big responsibility in offering our corporate partners the most suitable talent. We invest a lot of time interacting with companies from all over the world to make sure they have access to our talent. That is key to ensure that more than 90% of our students are working 3 months after graduation.
Can you name and describe some of the EADA Careers activities/actions/services?
The main objective is to enhance the link between students and the corporate world. Covid has changed many rules but I can list a couple of activities that have been successful for the last two academic years:
- Online Career Fairs and events: EADA, as an active member of EFMD, has been collaborating with Highered to offer large scale online fairs where our students have the opportunity to connect, chat with recruiters and participate in recruitment processes within the most recognized companies around the globe.
- Referral programmes: At least twice a year we share with our students the names of our corporate partners and we create a process to make internal referrals with the companies of their interest. This is done with an international scope and some of our students got their job through this initiative.
- I can say our Golden Service is the one-on-one personalized advice session to talk specifically about their own and personalized objectives. This is an on-demand service to provide them with support all through the selection process: communication, application, interview preparation, salary negotiation, …
What would you advise our participants and graduates to be successful in their career and job search?
Before thinking and updating your CV, define your objective and your target market. A CV could be better or worse depending on your objective so it doesn’t make any sense to work on your CV if the objective is not clear.
According to you, what are the key skills a student needs to have to start a successful career?
MOTIVATION
On average it takes 3 months to get the job that you want. Being resilient is key to avoiding frustrations and overcoming rejections. That is the reason why we spend so much time defining the objective, understanding their interest and, let’s say, helping them find their Ikigai.
Can you explain careers and corporate connections a bit more?
The sky is the limit for our students. We have many corporate partners that recruit students on a yearly basis and every year sees new companies interested in our talent. That is a non-stop activity we have at EADA Careers. 94% of companies we engage with on campus and online recruit EADA talent so the ROI for them is clearly worth it.
What are the main job positions that our recent graduates occupy?
I take care of the MsC Management students and around 30% of them join the Consulting industry as Analyst or Associate. That is definitely a huge target for them and being an active member of the consulting club is always a great advantage to get in the industry.
Can you share with us what you consider as your biggest achievement as a career advisor?
Keeping the relationship with our students and seeing how they keep interacting with EADA as Alumni. Also, travelling around and always meeting with Alumni in different places is very nice.
Is there anything more that you want to share with the readers about EADA Careers services?
EADA Careers Service is not an obligatory service, but it is used by 99% of our students. I like to think it is a key area that, aligned with the personal growth they will have during the programme, helps them to boost their career. We not only take care of current students, but the service is the same for Alumni. They know they can knock on our door whenever they need it.