Board Learns About Careers Office's Activities

Wed, February 28, 2024

If the chief point of going to college is to get a job, St. Clair strives to help students achieve that goal with more than just classroom lectures and lab work.

The school’s Career Services Office also provides a wide array of skill-building exercises and events to help students pursue their post-graduation careers.

During the Board of Governors’ February 27th meeting, the office furnished a review of its past year of activities:

Career Services (Experiential Learning and Career Services) moved to the Academic Sector in 2022, ahead of the trend across Ontario Colleges to align these services ... to enhance experiential learning opportunities for students. Now known as Experiential Learning and Career Services, the department supports curriculum-based work-integrated learning and co-curricular learning opportunities, as well as traditional career services to students. This re-alignment provides a greater opportunity to introduce career services to students much sooner into their academic journey, such that they have more time to develop employability skills well before they graduate.

Career Services operates out of the Genesis Centre to provide career readiness support to domestic and international students.

The more prominent space on campus, as well as increased programming, has contributed to the steady increase in the number of students seeking out career service support.

Career Services Officers provide one-on-one résumé, job search, and interview support during biweekly walk-in hours at the Genesis Centre. Commencing in September 2023, in-person drop-in support was expanded to include the Chatham campus (monthly) and the downtown campuses (bimonthly). Services continue to be available to all students, by appointment and virtually.

A comparison to the data collected last year indicates a significant increase in the number of students receiving career services (note that last year’s report included the month of February).

Career Services maintains Career Central, an online job-posting board available to St. Clair students and alumni. This year (April 2023 to the end of this January), 1,282 opportunities have been posted on that board; up from 1,153 in the previous year (April of 2022 through February of 2023).

The Department of Experiential Learning and Career Services also provides direct support for student placements for programs that have work-integrated learning as a mandatory or optional part of the curriculum, including all programs with work-integrated learning in the Schools of Engineering and Skilled Trades, as well as the internships for students in degree programs.

Career Services developed a pre-placement online module that students must complete before going out on work placement. In developing the module, Career Services surveyed the results of student placement employer feedback to identify areas of focus for student soft skill development. Working with LinkedIn Learning, Soft Skills seminars are included in the pre-placement modules that have been curated by Career Services based on the survey results of St. Clair College student placement employer feedback. This pre-placement requirement with the Soft Skills seminars was recently launched (Winter 2024 semester). “Soft skills” are the basic traits that all employers expect/demand of employees: punctuality, proper attire, comprehension of health-and-safety, etc..

During the past year, the office has also organized over a dozen career fairs for students-at-large and individual programs, seminars, entrepreneurship lectures, technology exhibits, and job-interview and resume-review clinics.

Board Learns About Careers Office's Activities

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