One month away from graduating university, 21-year-old Chelsea Soares will be leaving the halls of academia and marching straight into the job market — a luxury that would leave many recent graduates green with envy.

The Mount Saint Agnes and National Honours Society alum is set to graduate from Dalhousie University’s Faculty of Management Programme with a concentration in accounting. She will become the latest addition to Deloitte Bermuda’s Alternative Investments funds team, a part of Deloitte’s auditing group.

But securing a job before graduation comes down to more than just luck, said Chelsea.

Today, graduates entering the job market have to be smart about summer jobs, persistent with networking, and twinkle-toed when treading the line between persistence and overzealous badgering of potential employers.

“I’m personally not the most outgoing person. I’m not going to walk up to someone and say: ‘Hi, my name’s Chelsea I want a job!’ But I think there’s a fine line between being persistent and being overly keen.

“They [employers] should at least know your name,” said Chelsea. “If you’re e-mailing them and saying: ‘Look, I’m really interested in working full-time, can I possibly come in for an interview?’ — you have to ask early on, before you graduate, probably in November/December, and just keep in contact with them. Send them your transcript, let them know how your semester is going, so when you e-mail them again they know who you are.”

For Chelsea that process began when Deloitte visited her university for a networking event, where she was able to apply for and was eventually accepted into Deloitte’s DEEP internship programme. But networking during an internship, said Chelsea, was almost as important as the internship itself.

“Internships are essential to any college student or non-college student. They give you the opportunity to put yourself out there and be recognised. Bermuda’s economy has become very competitive and doing an internship such as the Deloitte DEEP Internship just gives you an advantage.

“Working hard and developing a good reputation within the internship, only helps you in your future endeavours such as a full-time position after university. In addition, internships allow students to make the transition into the working world.”

While transitioning into the job market is tricky for graduates, one can ease the strains and stress of securing a full-time job well in advanced. That, she said, starts with feeling out what career could be the career for you.

“I think early on I made the decision that if I want to study accounting, I should probably get a job in that area just to confirm whether I like it or not. So I think it’s really important for students, especially in the business world, to get into an internship because as much as you’d like to work on a beach for four summers before going into the real world, that’s not really a representation of what you’re studying.”

Internships, she said, allow students to gain valuable “behind the scenes” insights into the industry. Knowing she wanted to go into accounting, Chelsea said the DEEP programme provided her with all the tools she needed.

“The DEEP programme not only helped me see what actually goes on in day to day operations but it also gave me the opportunity to interact with all facets of the company. It gave me a real idea of where I could fit in and only confirmed my career choice of studying accounting.

“The opportunity to see how the organisation operates and what it takes to be able to work and cope in such a rigorous profession was very beneficial. The internship provides a great opportunity for networking and hands on experience. Students get a real taste of international business as they often go to client offices to complete different projects with Deloitte account teams.

“Each intern also receives coaching from a senior member of their team who will provide training and a solid knowledge base. Additionally, interns develop team-working skills by completing a group project that serves either a local charity or a Deloitte initiative. At the end of the internship, students present their project’s results to the leaders of Deloitte Bermuda. Students who show initiative are often invited back and ultimately employed as full time staff once their degrees have been completed.”