Alex LaPlante is the vice president of transformation & chief operating office, technology & operations, at RBC.Supplied
When Hussam Tahir was considering potential career options that might be open to him once he completed his undergrad degree in software development, he didn’t think about working for a bank like RBC as an option.
“As a programmer, I thought banks only offered careers in financial services,” says Tahir. “But I’ve learned that RBC has a large technology team with people I can learn from and a fulfilling career path for me.”
RBC recruits early talent with a wide range of educational backgrounds into many areas of the bank. Tahir learned this thanks to Discover RBC, a new recruitment program that informs students about the breadth of RBC’s businesses and the extensive opportunities it can offer them as they launch their careers.
In September 2023, Discover RBC started getting the word out via LinkedIn, by reaching out to campuses through career services, clubs and organizations, and through RBC student ambassadors. More than 6,600 students registered for the initial virtual sessions, which provided an overview of RBC and its various career paths.
The RBC Early Talent team then held 21 in-person sessions on 15 campuses across Canada to provide students with deeper insights into RBC’s various business groups such as personal and commercial banking, capital markets, insurance or technology. The goal was to help them decide which areas of the bank best aligned with their own career aspirations.
Tahir’s long-term goal is to work in artificial intelligence (AI), but he needed to complete a second co-op placement in order to graduate from Seneca Polytechnic in Toronto.
After reading about Discover RBC in his college newsletter, he contacted one of the recruiters. That led to several interviews, which