Algonquin College Graduate Employment Report
12/12/2012
Aaron L. Pope
When someone tells you that
they're pregnant with God's baby you may want to change the subject. At least
that's what Miranda Lavallee, Algonquin graduate and current employee at a local
women's shelter did her first few weeks on the job.
Lavallee graduated from the community and justice services program at Algonquin College three years ago and she has since been applying her education to working at a local woman’s homeless shelter. The skills that she picked up at Algonquin College have served her well in dealing with the many interesting situations that come from working in a place like this.
"I came in and I had to deal with this woman who was mentally ill and said that she was pregnant with God's child," said Lavallee. "The staff thought it would be funny, but also good work experience to get me in there and more or less direct her to move her belongings to the basement. So it was a huge, huge learning curve for me. It was kind of funny, but not really because of the mental health issues."
Lavallee managed to get a job out of the placement that Algonquin College set up for her in the last year of her course. Thanks to her in-class work and her field placement she was more than prepared to take on the challenges of working at a homeless shelter.
Every year thousands of students graduate from Algonquin College flooding the workforce with fresh skills and fresh eyes, the kind of attributes employers are looking for.
In order to keep up with industry demand and to know how the alumni are doing, the employment center at Algonquin College keeps records of graduates in the form of the Graduate Employment Report. The report which is done once a year every year compiles a full and detailed list of courses, graduates and whether or not they have found a job in their field of study, are still looking for employment or have moved on to another level of education.
"I often get phone calls from employers," said Jennifer Jarvis, employment outreach officer from student support services. “Usually, they are small businesses and they want to hire a graduate and they are not really sure what they should be paying. They may not have experience with new hires, they may have a small number of employees that have been with them for a while and they may not know how to go about getting labor market information."
Jarvis helps both the students trying to find work and employers trying to find workers. Mainly she will point potential employers and potential new students to the graduation employment report to get a handle on what each individual course offers.
"Sometimes students or parents will look at programs and I'm not going to say they make their decision on whether or not to choose a program based on those statistics," said Jarvis. "But they will look at the number of students that graduate from a program and the number of students who go on to full-time employment or to further education (to make their decision)”
However, not all courses are created equal. The courses that have seen the most graduates get jobs after school also have the highest numbers of graduates and the highest intake rates.
One of the courses which has consistently churned out a high number of employed graduates is the computer systems technician course. The course is a two-year program which teaches students about networking, operating systems and providing support for those technologies.
In the past week alone, Sean McBride, program coordinator for the computer systems technician course has already received three phone calls from employers looking to hire one of his grads.
"It's kind of unique in the sense that there's not a particular employer or group of employers that are being targeted," said McBride. “Anyone that uses IT, which is effectively anybody to supply and demand is an appropriate place for the students, which is nice to see."
This course, like many others strives for the most up-to-date curriculum in order to train the next generation of workers in every industry the college has a course to service.
Lavallee graduated from the community and justice services program at Algonquin College three years ago and she has since been applying her education to working at a local woman’s homeless shelter. The skills that she picked up at Algonquin College have served her well in dealing with the many interesting situations that come from working in a place like this.
"I came in and I had to deal with this woman who was mentally ill and said that she was pregnant with God's child," said Lavallee. "The staff thought it would be funny, but also good work experience to get me in there and more or less direct her to move her belongings to the basement. So it was a huge, huge learning curve for me. It was kind of funny, but not really because of the mental health issues."
Lavallee managed to get a job out of the placement that Algonquin College set up for her in the last year of her course. Thanks to her in-class work and her field placement she was more than prepared to take on the challenges of working at a homeless shelter.
Every year thousands of students graduate from Algonquin College flooding the workforce with fresh skills and fresh eyes, the kind of attributes employers are looking for.
In order to keep up with industry demand and to know how the alumni are doing, the employment center at Algonquin College keeps records of graduates in the form of the Graduate Employment Report. The report which is done once a year every year compiles a full and detailed list of courses, graduates and whether or not they have found a job in their field of study, are still looking for employment or have moved on to another level of education.
"I often get phone calls from employers," said Jennifer Jarvis, employment outreach officer from student support services. “Usually, they are small businesses and they want to hire a graduate and they are not really sure what they should be paying. They may not have experience with new hires, they may have a small number of employees that have been with them for a while and they may not know how to go about getting labor market information."
Jarvis helps both the students trying to find work and employers trying to find workers. Mainly she will point potential employers and potential new students to the graduation employment report to get a handle on what each individual course offers.
"Sometimes students or parents will look at programs and I'm not going to say they make their decision on whether or not to choose a program based on those statistics," said Jarvis. "But they will look at the number of students that graduate from a program and the number of students who go on to full-time employment or to further education (to make their decision)”
However, not all courses are created equal. The courses that have seen the most graduates get jobs after school also have the highest numbers of graduates and the highest intake rates.
One of the courses which has consistently churned out a high number of employed graduates is the computer systems technician course. The course is a two-year program which teaches students about networking, operating systems and providing support for those technologies.
In the past week alone, Sean McBride, program coordinator for the computer systems technician course has already received three phone calls from employers looking to hire one of his grads.
"It's kind of unique in the sense that there's not a particular employer or group of employers that are being targeted," said McBride. “Anyone that uses IT, which is effectively anybody to supply and demand is an appropriate place for the students, which is nice to see."
This course, like many others strives for the most up-to-date curriculum in order to train the next generation of workers in every industry the college has a course to service.
"We are able to continually
modify our own delivery approach," said William Garbarino, coordinator of
the business marketing course at Algonquin College. "I make tweaks every
single year, most programs have maybe a three to five year cycle, then they
make some changes where we upgrade every single year. We cannot afford to stay
put, within a couple of years the industry moves so dramatically that we have
to try to stay out on the leading edge with it."
Program coordinators, administrators and professors at Algonquin College have been keeping their ears to the ground and making sure that they understand exactly what it is that employers are looking for from their graduates.
"The biggest thing with employers now is they are under pressure to get people up and performing quickly," said Garbarino. “They don't have the time to take you through a very long and protracted training period to get the basic skills and fundamentals. They expect those skills to be there."
Kyber Outerwear is a clothing manufacturing and distribution company that distributes its product to a few thousand retail outlets across the country. They are looking to expand and they have already posted an ad looking for graduates on the job posting board at Algonquin’s website.
"We are looking for someone that has fresh skills and will work at a cost-effective rate," said Todd Lavigne, human relations officer at Kyber. "We don't care what they got in terms of their grades at school and we don't see where they graduated in their class. We just want to know if they finish the program that's really what we look for; we are the same as everyone else."
Developing job searching skills can be one of the most difficult and grueling parts of one's education. Just because an Algonquin student has graduated, it doesn't mean that they still can't benefit from the school's services.
"We can do interview coaching, one on one mock interviews," said Jarvis. "We will develop some questions, ask those questions and then give the student a little bit of feedback. All of this is based on our experience working with employers. We often sit down with employers and (ask) them ‘what are you looking for? Tell us what you like to see on a resume, tell us a little bit about your interview format.’ Sometimes students don't have that experience with a formal structured interview."
Rodney Walsh is the program coordinator for the developmental service worker course. He trains his students to work with the developmentally challenged in group home settings or for families of the developmentally disabled.
He says most of his students will get a job where they've done their last placement. The job sites like to hire his students because they don't have to train them and it saves money in the long run. Developmental service workers have an average starting salary of $46,000 per year according to Walsh.
"I think we have such success because, first of all the type of program that it is," said Walsh. “We are very specialized program different than ECE, different then police foundations, because we have a very special type of training that is needed in the community and they can't hire an ECE and they can't hire another type of degree because they don't get the specialized training they get with us."
There are some common themes that everyone seems to agree are very important when it comes to the job hunt. While not every employer is going to be looking for the same qualifications, they are going to be looking for a lot of the same attributes in a new potential hire.
One of the main things is to put yourself out there, to volunteer anywhere that you might be hoping to work in the future.
"At the beginning I came in and did every down and dirty shift possible," said Lavallee. "I remember one time we had an incident with bedbugs and a few of the residents had a lot of bed linens that needed to be washed and we didn't have enough laundry machines here. So I just took a shift and volunteered to carry stuff to another building and wash it. A little effort goes a long way I guess."
Lavallee's advice is to put yourself out there and work harder than you think you need to and be open to anything even if you don't think that it's within your field of study, it's a small part of a bigger picture.
The next thing that is important when looking for a job is to get used to the idea of networking yourself.
"The issue is most professional jobs are not out there sitting in some job posting board," said Garbarino. "They are available through people's networks, they're available through referrals and unless you tap into that, you're going to have a lot of problems. Most of our grads are experts at (networking) and that's why our employment rate is so high."
Garbarino says the biggest thing is to figure out what kind of job you want or which industry you want to become a part of and research it.
"Too many students just go out there and start throwing resumes up on monster and start applying to everything without figuring out exactly what they want," said Garbarino. "Talk to people that have an affiliation with the industry, what are they looking for? What are the skills they desire? What is their hiring cycle? All of those things will help you have a better understanding as to where the jobs are."
Even just staying in touch with classmates and professors can lead to future employment. Classmates who have found jobs will have the inside track on their company new hires.
"Step up your networking," said Jarvis. "I don't think that new graduates really know how important it is. If they're not getting a job in their field, if they have a job that's paying the bills, they need to look at: can they possibly find something that they can do that will create connections in their field?"
According to Jarvis sometimes it's just a matter of casting your net a little bit wider, looking for jobs outside of your field or looking for jobs outside of your geographical area. If you are looking for work you may need to move to another city or even province which is looking for people to come in from the outside.
So be aggressive in researching your field, talk to anyone and everyone who can move you one step closer to finding the job you have worked so hard for already. Research your industry and personalize your approach to any company you are courting for a job or a placement.
Don’t shy away from grunt work. You may have been top of your class in high school and college, but in the working world you are at the bottom rung. The good news is there is nowhere to go from the bottom but up.
Program coordinators, administrators and professors at Algonquin College have been keeping their ears to the ground and making sure that they understand exactly what it is that employers are looking for from their graduates.
"The biggest thing with employers now is they are under pressure to get people up and performing quickly," said Garbarino. “They don't have the time to take you through a very long and protracted training period to get the basic skills and fundamentals. They expect those skills to be there."
Kyber Outerwear is a clothing manufacturing and distribution company that distributes its product to a few thousand retail outlets across the country. They are looking to expand and they have already posted an ad looking for graduates on the job posting board at Algonquin’s website.
"We are looking for someone that has fresh skills and will work at a cost-effective rate," said Todd Lavigne, human relations officer at Kyber. "We don't care what they got in terms of their grades at school and we don't see where they graduated in their class. We just want to know if they finish the program that's really what we look for; we are the same as everyone else."
Developing job searching skills can be one of the most difficult and grueling parts of one's education. Just because an Algonquin student has graduated, it doesn't mean that they still can't benefit from the school's services.
"We can do interview coaching, one on one mock interviews," said Jarvis. "We will develop some questions, ask those questions and then give the student a little bit of feedback. All of this is based on our experience working with employers. We often sit down with employers and (ask) them ‘what are you looking for? Tell us what you like to see on a resume, tell us a little bit about your interview format.’ Sometimes students don't have that experience with a formal structured interview."
Rodney Walsh is the program coordinator for the developmental service worker course. He trains his students to work with the developmentally challenged in group home settings or for families of the developmentally disabled.
He says most of his students will get a job where they've done their last placement. The job sites like to hire his students because they don't have to train them and it saves money in the long run. Developmental service workers have an average starting salary of $46,000 per year according to Walsh.
"I think we have such success because, first of all the type of program that it is," said Walsh. “We are very specialized program different than ECE, different then police foundations, because we have a very special type of training that is needed in the community and they can't hire an ECE and they can't hire another type of degree because they don't get the specialized training they get with us."
There are some common themes that everyone seems to agree are very important when it comes to the job hunt. While not every employer is going to be looking for the same qualifications, they are going to be looking for a lot of the same attributes in a new potential hire.
One of the main things is to put yourself out there, to volunteer anywhere that you might be hoping to work in the future.
"At the beginning I came in and did every down and dirty shift possible," said Lavallee. "I remember one time we had an incident with bedbugs and a few of the residents had a lot of bed linens that needed to be washed and we didn't have enough laundry machines here. So I just took a shift and volunteered to carry stuff to another building and wash it. A little effort goes a long way I guess."
Lavallee's advice is to put yourself out there and work harder than you think you need to and be open to anything even if you don't think that it's within your field of study, it's a small part of a bigger picture.
The next thing that is important when looking for a job is to get used to the idea of networking yourself.
"The issue is most professional jobs are not out there sitting in some job posting board," said Garbarino. "They are available through people's networks, they're available through referrals and unless you tap into that, you're going to have a lot of problems. Most of our grads are experts at (networking) and that's why our employment rate is so high."
Garbarino says the biggest thing is to figure out what kind of job you want or which industry you want to become a part of and research it.
"Too many students just go out there and start throwing resumes up on monster and start applying to everything without figuring out exactly what they want," said Garbarino. "Talk to people that have an affiliation with the industry, what are they looking for? What are the skills they desire? What is their hiring cycle? All of those things will help you have a better understanding as to where the jobs are."
Even just staying in touch with classmates and professors can lead to future employment. Classmates who have found jobs will have the inside track on their company new hires.
"Step up your networking," said Jarvis. "I don't think that new graduates really know how important it is. If they're not getting a job in their field, if they have a job that's paying the bills, they need to look at: can they possibly find something that they can do that will create connections in their field?"
According to Jarvis sometimes it's just a matter of casting your net a little bit wider, looking for jobs outside of your field or looking for jobs outside of your geographical area. If you are looking for work you may need to move to another city or even province which is looking for people to come in from the outside.
So be aggressive in researching your field, talk to anyone and everyone who can move you one step closer to finding the job you have worked so hard for already. Research your industry and personalize your approach to any company you are courting for a job or a placement.
Don’t shy away from grunt work. You may have been top of your class in high school and college, but in the working world you are at the bottom rung. The good news is there is nowhere to go from the bottom but up.
-30-
No comments:
Post a Comment