Posted: April 2, 2024
By: Mark Campbell
Ceilidh Bray (MASC’22) was excited. She had just completed the GradPD certificate, which offers graduate students at Dalhousie professional development opportunities to help launch their careers, when she received an invite from Colliers to interview for a job. She aced that interview and has been promoted twice since joining the company.
“It’s been steady improvement and progress for me here,” says Bray, senior associate, infrastructure advisory. “In this role, I’m using more of the skills that I learned in my engineering degree, which I am really happy about and GradPD helped make that possible.”
Bray is the first graduate of the GradPD certificate program. She heard about it during the COVID pandemic when few companies were hiring. She was struggling to land a job and was looking to gain a competitive edge. “I wanted to be more prepared when I graduated because I thought the industry would be more settled by then,” Bray says. “This program seemed like the perfect way to do that.”
The comprehensive program made all the difference for Bray, with workshops, experiential learning and reflection exercises across four pillars— communication, career intelligence, health & well-being and leadership. Overall, she found the leadership-related learning particularly beneficial.
“I didn't have a lot of experience in industry, so it covered areas I was a little iffy on, such as business etiquette and projecting yourself,” Bray says. “I also learned tools like time management, goal setting and how to do job interviews, which gave me more confidence in myself.”
Thanks to GradPD, Bray is ready for whatever comes next. “It helped me better understand what I want in terms of goals and now I can look at the leadership roles I want to achieve on my career path,” Bray says.
"In this role, I'm using more of the skills that I learned in my Engineering degree." - Ceilidh Bray (MASC'22)