My name is Vyom Patel, an Associate under the Career Launch™ Program (CLP) at RBC. The program combines formal learning, mentorship and professional networking opportunities with practical hands-on business and community experience in three rotations.
About the RBC CLP Program
- The three rotations within the CLP are broken down into six months working under the retail sector at an RBC branch.
- Thereafter, based on your skillsets and achievements within the first six months of the Client Advisor role, CLP Managers try their very best to align every Associate in their next two remaining rotations.
- One of those two rotations is a three-month rotation, where each Associate is sent on secondment to a non-profit organization.
Fast forward to my current rotation, which is the second rotation under the CLP, I had the privilege of working with Enactus Canada. I was extraordinarily excited to work for Enactus given my passion for entrepreneurship.
My Experience at Enactus Canada
I have to commend the warm and friendly culture at Enactus Canada’s head office, since I have never meshed with a young and talented group so quickly. Within the span of a week, I was included in many meetings and a series of formal and informal social engagements with the entire team. I immediately felt part of the team. The work environment was remarkable – imagine a startup – it is quite similar at Enactus.
During my rotation with Enactus, I served as a Project Coordinator to support their Alumni engagement initiatives. I was able to partake in quite a few projects ranging from conducting research on Enactus alumni to curating a wealth of resources to help students prepare for their career paths.
What I’ve Learned
Before being accepted into the program, the post-graduation stage was not as clear as it was drafted by our educators, which was quite simple from their perspective: go to school, get your degree, and companies will want to hire you.
It can come as a shock when employers pass over your job applications irrespective of the wide-variety of experiences and involvement that has plainly made YOU, who you are TODAY! However, I did not let that slow me down, and continued to build my career portfolio working in a variety of industries, ranging from retail, telecommunications, banking, education, entertainment, marketing, advertising and customer experience.
Here is the moral of my career path so far: never underestimate yourself and your potential. Take time to recognize where your core skills and capabilities lie, and then leverage them to accelerate your own growth and impact in the different facets of life.