Meet Samantha Mensah-Asiedu, a second-year CRMBA student. Born in Halifax, Samantha completed her undergraduate degree at Dalhousie with a major in Kinesiology. After spending time abroad, she decided to apply for the MBA program after remembering a presentation she attended during her final year of her undergraduate program. When choosing a program, Samantha decided to return to Dalhousie for the unique opportunity to complete an 8-month corporate residency as part of her MBA.

Last year, Samantha completed her corporate residency at Davis Pier, a consulting firm that specializes in government and social affairs, offering services in strategy analytics technology. During her work term as an Analyst, she collaborated with multiple teams on tasks such as project coordination, province-wide virtual session management, and deliverable quality assurance. “I worked on projects that have helped transform and update government led social-economic programs, had opportunities to work on the development of internal focus areas within Davis Pier, and had the pleasure of completing supporting work with Davis Pier’s non-profit sister company, Pier Labs, through research and data analysis.”

During her corporate residency, Samantha learned many skills that will be imperative to her future career.  “I have learned that there are many things that I am capable of accomplishing as long as I try,” she says. “I have learned that with the right teams and environment, work can be fun and challenges can be more easily worked through together. Healthy work culture is something that is absolutely necessary and being part of a firm that established that kind of environment reassured that necessity for me.” She also shares that she quickly learned how to work in what she calls ‘controlled chaos’. “As a consultant, it seems there are always multiple different things going on at once as you are working on a variety of projects during the day or week. Finding my own balance and flow was nice and exciting, as it showed me what I am capable of.”

While job searching for her corporate residency, Samantha decided to take a proactive approach. To gain connections with potential employers, she participated in a number of coffee chats with employees and co-op students at companies of interest. It was during these coffee chats that she connected with a co-op student at Davis Pier and found that Davis Pier’s values closely aligned with her own.

Throughout her job search, Samantha utilized the resources offered by Management Career Services. She frequently used myCareer to keep up to date on possible opportunities and to facilitate effective communication between employers and herself.

Samantha’s advice for you:

• Research firms in the industry you’re interested in. Do not count out the smaller firms, they could be a good fit.
• Participate in coffee chats to help guide your application decisions.
• Be yourself in the interviews and ask questions to ensure that the company is also a good fit for you. It is OK to take a notebook with your research and questions into your interviews.