News Releases

Jayhawks on the Job program provides KU Business students with real-world learning opportunities

Friday, May 1, 2009

BY ANDY TSE

On February 27, a group of KU School of Business students, wearing business suits, were excitedly loading up in buses to travel to Kansas City for the annual business professional job shadowing held by the KU Business Career Services Center (BCSC) - Jayhawks on the Job. In this one-day event, students got to meet potential employers and to learn more about the career in their field of study. KU regularly provides students various learning opportunities outside the classroom. The main purposes of Jayhawks on the Job are networking and understanding of the real world.

The selection process for the program was competitive, especially under current job market conditions. I was lucky enough to be one of the participants, and to be hosted by one of my preferred companies, KPMG, one of the Big Four accounting firms and a popular choice for Jayhawks on the Job! I believe every participant of the program had a wonderful time. Although I cannot tell how the experience was for other participants, I am glad to share my own. I am a Master of Accounting student from Hong Kong.

When I learned about my admission to the program, I started to communicate with my assigned host through email. Although it is a formal procedure requested by the BCSC, I treated it as a great opportunity to practice written communications with other professionals. My hosts were Chin Modha and Brad Thies from the IT Advisory division in KPMG. They are both KU alumni, and they were absolutely the ones who can tell KU students about the conversion from school to real world.

The schedule of the day was packed. First of all, we headed to a nice restaurant for lunch after we, a group of four students, met with the hosts. The food was great, but that was not the point. It is all about socializing in a casual setting. There we met the IT Advisory team as well as two new IT interns. In addition to chatting about KU fun facts, we talked about the relevant school classes suitable to the actual work, the company's culture, and many other meaningful topics. Interestingly, a special scene happened during the lunch when a group of professionals from another Big Four firm passed by. My host, Chin, greeted them and then turned to us, saying, "We are close competitors, but also friends (company-to-company.) Somehow we work together to keep the whole industry going. And, there is no enemy forever. It is just a conflict of interests."

After the lunch, our next stop was KPMG's main KC office which is just a few blocks away. The office is located up high in a skyscraper and occupies three whole floors. It had great views of the downtown area, and it looked well organized inside. It was how I dreamed about the Big Four. However, the workplace looked quite empty on our day of visit. Our host explained, "Since KPMG is a professional service provider, the main office is not its only workplace. Everyone is out on the job sites working with clients. Most of us do not stay in the main office often, except the Tax department. It is how we work." I was glad to hear that "Friday" was not the reason. During the visit, we also met the managers, the recruiters, and people from other departments. They all kindly welcomed us and told us more about the company culture and the nature of their work. Our hosts made a statement, "Unlike many private companies, we large public accounting firms are willing to promote employees when they have achieved certain levels of work and achievement. And the culture is this: people are helping each other to get promoted instead of competing for limited positions."

More excitement for the day, we got the chance to visit another international corporation. Our last stop was Sprint Nextel's headquarters in Overland Park, a valuable client of KPMG. When we first got there, I was amazed by the wide working area that Sprint was offering to its external aud...