Jeehan Javed is transforming the international sales process at a Nova Scotia based company.
Jeehan was hired as a Sales Manager at Halifax dental technology company BlueLight Analytics just a few months after graduating with a Bachelor of Commerce degree.
Since then, she has been creating more opportunities for herself, and her employer, than she ever imagined.
Her fluency in multiple languages has directly impacted BlueLight’s ability to build international relationships and international sales strategies.
“My role quickly grew to include involvement in business development, marketing operations and client relations. I have moved on from creating, implementing and executing a sales process to training a new sales hire and managing sales operations,” says Jeehan. “I am now developing skills to move into more of a project management role that would entail my involvement with almost all functions of the company”.
The Graduate to Opportunity (GTO) program made it easier for BlueLight Analytics to invest in Jeehan. The provincial government program provides a wage subsidy of 25% of the first year’s salary and 12.5% of the second year’s salary to small businesses, start-ups and not-for-profits who commit to hiring recent grads. Employers receive an additional 10% in the first year if their new hire identifies as a member of a diversity group.
Jeehan’s employer, Leeza Hack says the GTO program has been great for helping close the employment gap for new graduates. “You don’t necessarily know that they know how to do all the functions of a role,” says Leeza. “But the GTO program allows you to hire a new graduate and mitigate some of that risk because the salary is subsidized”.
Jeehan believes that the GTO program will play a role in helping retain young talent in Nova Scotia.
“The GTO program allows companies to hire the talent they may not otherwise be able to hire,” she says. “It gives young people the opportunity to get that work experience, and gives those companies the opportunity to hire the people that are the right fit for the role”.
Since its launch in 2015, over 550 graduates have secured full-time employment in their fields in Nova Scotia with the help of GTO.
Stay tuned for BlueLight Analytics’s video story coming soon.
Learn more about how GTO can help you hire fresh talent like Jeehan: https://novascotia.ca/programs/graduate-to-opportunity
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