Major: Accounting; minor in Finance
Hometown: Rochester, N.Y.
Current Job: Business Analyst for Mindseeker, Charlotte, N.C.
Through St. Bonaventure's Career and Professional Readiness Center, Sean Rickard was put in touch with alumni in a host of different cities. It was the enthusiastic, tight-knit Chalotte, N.C., alumni that ultimately won him over.
A solid educational core My business degree from St. Bonaventure helps me every day in my job. |
With only the encouragement of the Charlotte alumni base and no guarantee of a position, Rickard decided to take a chance on the southern city. Within a week of his moving to the city he was interviewing at Wells Fargo and, before he knew it, he was hired as a business analyst for the company.
“It’s still a running joke with my parents,” he said. “My mother told me I would be back in three or four months. I made a trip down in my dad’s old car with three or four pairs of pants ... and the next thing I knew I was here full time, signing a lease. It’s been eight years now. I love the city and I love what the alumni here have done for me.”
Rickard now works for Mindseeker, a Charlotte recruiting firm, with the very alumni who convinced him to move to Charlotte.
“I work with a lot of Bonaventure alums who helped me get a job down here… I had to jump at the opportunity, and I haven’t looked back since,” he said.
St. Bonaventure provided Rickard with more than just a helpful alumni base. His business degree has gone a long way toward Rickard’s success in the professional sphere.
“My degree in business helps me every day in my job,” he said. “Between the core curriculum and my business major, I was exposed to accounting, finance, management and marketing. I deal with all of those four areas of expertise on a daily basis with all the jobs that I recruit for. It allows me to define the right role for each of my candidates.”
The understandable result of all of this is that Rickard, who is president of SBU’s alumni chapter in Charlotte, is bursting with Bonaventure pride: “That degree, it’s something that I’m proud of every day. I have my diploma still hanging up on the wall of my bedroom, and it’s something that I can look at every day with pride. I am very excited to be a Bonnie.”