Being a new engineering graduate from the University of Calgary equipped with my shiny new iron ring, I faced the daunting prospect of finding a job to kick off my engineering career while most everyone was still working from home. I was lucky enough that one my good friends worked at Arcurve for his internship and connected me with Jay. One thing led to another, and I was hired as a Jr. Project Manager. Many of the recent graduates working at Arcurve were interns at one point, and I can see why they wanted to come back. Many companies tout the ‘family’ moniker when describing the company community, but I found Arcurve actually delivers on that front.
I know there’s probably the comment out there of: “whoa Eric, you were hired directly as a project manager as a fresh graduate without any formal company project management experience?” Believe me, I had those doubts too. But what I came to realize very quickly is that, more than my formal experience, they saw what I accomplished before and believed in my capacity to do work and to grow. Despite only being at the company for two months, I’ve already had the opportunity to shadow and learn from program directors. Any time I asked for an opportunity to learn, Arcurve set me up with the right mentor for it. I’ve been super impressed with the culture of constructive feedback that is built into the culture here. Every time someone noticed anything I did incorrectly, I got a message immediately with tips on how to improve; none of that build up a list of grievances to wait for a monthly review nonsense.
Even in my short time here, it’s been demanding. Within my first week I was placed onto several projects with the intention of me taking them over as the project manager to learn by doing. Rather than going through many tedious training modules, I was involved from the get-go and trusted to learn quickly and take on the responsibility. Two months in, I’m project manager for three projects and assisting with a fourth. With the breadth of projects available, suffice to say, doesn’t look like I’ll become bored and complacent in my position.
Arcurve is so obsessed with finding value that even my inexperience was leveraged. Since I was unfamiliar to the company, for my onboarding I’m developing an internal company landing page that outlines things from onboarding processes to service delivery. Even as a new graduate, I’ve been given more than just trivial responsibilities and have been welcomed into the family. It’s been great so far and I’m looking forward to growing here.
