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Management Career Services (MCS) brought back its annual Toronto Corporate Tour for the first time since 2019 — an event that introduces business students to employer partners in a variety of industries in Toronto.

Thirty-eight business students attended one of two tour streams, Finance and Career Discovery, depending on their major or area of interest. The Finance stream focused on visiting employer partners in the financial services sector, while Career Discovery students met employer partners from a variety of industries, including accounting, marketing, and supply chain.

“Participating in this tour has given me great insight into the corporate world,” says Corporate Residency MBA student Veronica Hawkes. “It can be challenging to choose which path to take after graduation and through the tour I have been able to see many different areas of business that I did not even know existed. I am excited to explore these new areas as I start to seek post-graduate opportunities,.” she adds.

Representatives from MCS arrange office tours, networking events, and practice interviews. “As the Greater Toronto Area is our second-largest market for work terms, we are excited to return physically to see our employer partners in person and provide opportunities for our students to grow their professional networks there,” says Robert Wooden, Director of MCS. In 2022, 27% of all MCS work terms were completed in Toronto.

Over the course of three days, the two tour streams visited a total of 14 employer partners, including advertising agency twenty6two International. “We would like to thank the wonderful Dalhousie students that came to visit as part of Management Career Services’ Toronto Corporate Tour,” the organization shared in a LinkedIn post. “It was an honor to be able to share some of the work we do for our clients with such an inquisitive group of future business professionals.”

Both streams had the opportunity to attend a networking lunch and practice interview session, sponsored by Manulife. Volunteers from Toronto employer partners attended the event to conduct the practice interviews and provide the students with valuable feedback.

On day two, all students came together again for an alumni panel followed by an alumni and employer partner networking reception, both sponsored and hosted by BMO. Special thanks to Dalhousie University Chancellor (and Vice-Chair of Wealth at BMO), the Honourable Scott Brison, for moderating the alumni panel and hosting the networking reception.

Student feedback from the event was very positive – 100% of students who attended agreed it was a valuable experience and would recommend the tour to other business students, and 97% agreed the tour helped provide focus on their career goals. “This Corporate Tour has been so good for me because it helped me to understand what companies really look like and how they work, which I didn’t know about before,” says first-year Commerce Co-op student Guanhua Li.

 “It was extremely rewarding to see the professionalism and preparedness of our business students,” says Robert. “They took advantage of every learning and networking opportunity presented on this tour, and the employers noticed. I never get tired of hearing our employer partners say how impressed they are by our students.”