On July 20, students in Conestoga’s Information Technology Business Analysis (ITBA) graduate certificate program participated in Career Connections at the Doon campus. The event was established to connect students with industry representatives to learn more about the various job roles that support the growth and advancement of businesses.
Presenters at Career Connections included Ritul Verma and Jaay Jegathas of TQS. Verma (left) is a 2018 Information Technology Business Analysis - Operations graduate.
Ritul Verma, a business analyst at Oakville-based logistics company TQS, just graduated from the ITBA program in April and shared a presentation titled “From Campus to Corporate.”
As part of the real-world case study he completed in his final term at the college, Verma worked with TQS when the company turned to the ITBA class to develop a “demand driven” business model that could predict trends before they happen in order to provide benefits to clients. He found employment with the company after graduating.
“The way this course is delivered is beautiful,” said Verma when discussing how the skills gained through ITBA helped him secure full-time employment. "It's a good opportunity that Conestoga is providing. Don’t overlook your experience at the college when you are developing your resume -- all the case studies, projects and assignments count as professional experience. When it comes to case studies, share your roles, responsibilities and achievements -- learning from them is a rare opportunity.”
Abhir Whala, associate implementation analyst at Ceridian, completed the ITBA program in 2017. Like Verma, he said the programming and coursework was helpful in building his resume.
“You might not have experience, but you can draw on the experience you gained through Conestoga and the case studies you completed,” said Whala.
Whala also provided resume and job search tips, and encouraged students to find volunteer opportunities that could complement their academic studies.
Other presenters included Jaay Jegathas, TQS project manager; Simone Craig, Project Management manager at Sun Life Canada; and Michael Ho, applications recruiter at TEKsystems.
As companies determine how to make sense of vast amounts of data to improve their growth, the demand for professionals with both a business and technology side -- who understand how to turn insight into action -- has grown. A critical role in the facilitation of software/system development growth is played by business analysts who gather business requirements from several organizational areas and interpret them so they can be implemented by IT teams.
In the Information Technology Business Analysis - Operations graduate certificate program students develop critical skills in the areas of application software, business data analysis and modeling, customer engagement management, business processes, enterprise resource planning and communications.