As an international student in the accounting program at UT, I knew language and culture would be my biggest hurdles. In my sophomore year, I mustered the courage to attend Deloitte's "International Student Career Workshop," only to embarrass myself by failing to understand Canadian colleagues' slang. That setback made me realize GPA alone wasn't enough. For the next six months, I religiously practiced business English at Hart House at 7 a.m., joined Toastmasters on weekends, and even took a "Cross-Cultural Business Communication" course.
When the online application season came around, I spent three weeks reworking my resume . I transformed my internship experience at a domestic securities firm into a "Comparison and Analysis of Accounting Standards in China and the United States" project, and described my student union work as "Cross-cultural Team Leadership Experience". During the Behavioral Interview, when the interviewer asked me how I handled cultural conflicts, I shared a true story about coordinating team members from various countries when leading the Rotman Business Competition - this answer earned an approving smile from the interviewer.
On my first day, I was thrown into the deep end. The team was working on a cross-border M&A deal, and I was assigned to organize financial data for a U.S. subsidiary. My first encounter with US GAAP adjustments left me staring, bewildered at spreadsheets. Sarah, my manager, noticed my struggle and handed me a Tim Hortons coffee, saying, "Don't worry—I couldn't make sense of deferred taxes at first either." That reassurance steadied me.
The most unforgettable experience was the training of participating in the annual audit. In order to check the inventory of the Montreal factory, I had to follow the inventory monitoring team to count the raw materials in the weather of minus 20 degrees Celsius. A Canadian colleague joked that this was an "Arctic Audit Training", but it was precisely this first-hand experience that enabled me to understand the real business operations behind the figures. When I pointed out a mistake in exchange rate conversion at the quarterly review meeting, I felt my professional value for the first time.
This internship gave me more than a return offer. It reshaped my career perspective. In a multicultural environment, technical skills are just the foundation; true competitiveness comes from rapid learning, adaptability, and communication. Now, whenever I walk past Bay Street, I remember Sarah's words: "In this industry, you don't work as a Chinese professional. You work as a professional who solves problems." That may be the most valuable lesson Deloitte taught me.
Release time:2025-04-24
