Career Management Center: Helping Connect Students with that All-Important First Job

Career Management Center: Helping Connect Students with that All-Important First Job

That first job after college can help launch a successful and satisfying long-term career. That’s why the Career Management Center within the Fowler College of Business offers career counseling and resources to all SDSU business students who are about to enter the job market. 

Two of these students, management senior, Vincent Young and management information systems (MIS) senior, Brandon Goodwin received assistance from the center’s highly-trained staff to help them land jobs with nationally known organizations. 

We caught up with Vincent and Brandon and here’s what they had to say: 

Vincent Young

Vincent Young
The events of September 11, 2001 left a lasting impression on Vincent Young, who was a 9-year-old living in Brooklyn at the time. With terror attacks lingering in his mind, Young joined the U.S. Marine Corps immediately after finishing high school and was stationed at Camp Pendleton in San Diego County, California. 

Three years later, Young re-enlisted and moved to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina to be closer to his family, but the new sense of confidence and the training he received in the Marine Corps led him to want to pursue a college degree. “I didn’t have much desire to go to college after high school, because no one in my family attended and it didn’t seem important to me at the time,” Young explained. “The military helped me to sharpen my computer skills, taught me how to be a strategic thinker, and to have the confidence to overcome any situation. So after three deployments, I decided to face new challenges and attend college.”

With 18 credits of college coursework from his time in the military, Young had a head start toward earning his degree. While searching for the right institution, he realized that he missed living in Southern California, so he applied and was accepted to San Diego State University, where he chose to major in management with a specialization in human resources. 

During his junior year in the spring of 2019, Young met Greg Tanneberger, the Fowler College of Business’ Career Management Center’s external/alumni relations coordinator. He told Tanneberger that he was looking for a summer internship and Tanneberger pointed him toward BD, an international medical device company, who was looking to fill a marketing strategy internship with a graduate student. “Even though the position was advertised for an MBA student, Greg believed that, based on my resume and experience, I should apply for it,” said Young. “I did apply, I was offered the internship and worked at BD during that summer. Since then, I made a point to reach out to the Career Management Center for any assistance related to career help.”

That’s precisely what Young did when he got the opportunity to interview with Accenture, which is a global professional services organization and a Fortune 500 company. The company notified him that his initial interview would be a “case interview” which is when the prospective employee is given a business issue during the interview and then asked how he/she would manage the issue. “After practicing case interviews with Beverly Bracker and Tina Tan, I ended up doing well at my interview,” said Young. 

Accenture offered Young a position within the company as a consulting analyst in their consulting development program. He starts his new job shortly after he graduates from SDSU in May and Young gives much of the credit for his interview success to the Career Management Center. “Here at SDSU, we are fortunate to have the Career Management Center which serves to assist in the interview process since interviews specific to business can be different than interviews conducted in other fields,” he said. “I can attest to this because the Career Management Center was instrumental in the preparation for my interview with Accenture.”

Brandon Goodwin

Brandon Goodwin

Like Vincent Young, Brandon Goodwin received assistance from the Career Management Center, but came to the center through a very different route. 

Goodwin, a native of Fremont, California, came to San Diego State “because of the strong business program and because there is so much to do in San Diego.”  

When Goodwin took his first MIS course, the students in the class were assigned the task of working with local businesses with the goal of helping the businesses solve an organizational challenge by using technology. “This project opened my eyes to the world of consulting and I really enjoyed utilizing the combination of organizational skills, people skills and technical skills needed to make the project successful,” he explained. 

This experience led Goodwin to consider pursuing a career in consulting and he sought advice from Dr. Bruce Reinig, MIS professor and interim dean at SDSU’s Fowler College of Business. Reinig put him in touch with Bracker, who is the director of the Career Management Center. 

“Beverly suggested that I first get a better understanding of the industry and introduced me to a resource called Vault, which has company rankings and reviews,” recalled Goodwin. “From Vault, I discovered that the Big Four accounting firms provided advisory services that make them very reputable consulting firms. This sparked my interest and when they started recruiting at SDSU, I already had an understanding of what these firms do.” 

After several more one-on-one meetings with Bracker to define his resume and cover letter, Goodwin embarked a series of interviews which resulted in offers from EY, Deloitte and KPMG, whose offer he accepted. “I will start working for KPMG this summer as a governance, risk and compliance technology SAP consultant in the Bay Area,” he said. 

After his experience with the Career Management Center, Goodwin offers this advice to other students who may need their help: “If you are even thinking about going to the Career Management Center, then go. For those who already have an idea of what they want to do, they can provide many resources to better understand the industry and what recruiters are looking for. “