Hello!

My name is Courtney Ward. I am a campus recruiter at EY. I hire college juniors to be strategy consulting interns. I own the process of opening applications, hosting on-campus events, managing first and final round interviews, making offer decisions, and persuading candidates to join EY.   
 
Recruiting is the primary part of my job. I am also responsible for onboarding all the campus hires for my team. Each recruiter is assigned a special off-season role and onboarding project manager happens to be mine. I love it but it does come with a lot of stress. Last summer and fall I successfully onboard 500+ new hires. My biggest accomplishment in this area was planning, project managing and facilitating many of the 11 orientation and training sessions that these new hires needed to attend. I did this all while having walking pneumonia for three weeks at the peak of onboarding and while dealing with severe undiagnosed Lupus symptoms the entire time. By the last session in mid-September, I was exhausted, but I felt so accomplished. My team as extremely proud of the work I had done and even more impressed that we had almost no incidences of disgruntled hiring managers. 

Integrity and reliability are top values in my career. Being a recruiter is an interesting job. I often tell people it’s hard because others make it hard. Especially in my role – I work in a corporate office as opposed to a staffing firm and I hire nationally instead of locally. I work with a lot of people who have opposing inputs on how best to run the recruitment process. What I’ve found while collaborating with various teams is that integrity is incredibly important. If a mistake is made, it’s best to just own up to it. If a great idea didn’t come up from you, then it’s best to properly attribute the work then figure out how to make your name stand out in the contributions (if that is even necessary or important). The list goes on and on to include candidate interactions and activities that take place on campus. I deal with a lot of people who like to assess blame instead of solutions which makes the job unnecessarily tough. Reliability is also very important. I’ve always worked in roles that require a lot of collaboration. In my role as an onboarding project manager, there is very little I could do without relying on others. In fact, I couldn’t get a single orientation or training session off the group without the assistance of a fleet of people. While these sessions can be major productions, having a team of reliable players is the difference between success and abject failure. 

Outside of EY and GSU, I am a yoga teacher. I’ve been teaching for just over three years and practicing close to nine. I like to wake up with the sun to meditate, move, and practice gratitude. When all of that is done, I take my dog, Honey, on a walk. Then, I make lots of fresh fruit and vegetable juice. Finally, I start my day with a giant green smoothie. I’m a huge advocate for diet to treat any form of disease within reason. I was diagnosed with Lupus last fall but I have no severe Lupus symptoms due to committing to a strict, mostly vegan, diet and vitamin routine. This lifestyle makes it possible for me to work fulltime, teach four yoga classes per week, be a graduate student, and spend time with my family. It keeps the fatigue and pain away! I also spend plenty of time with my sweet 8-year-old nephew, Matthew. We read books together and play Mario Cart.