When Miranda Fong finished her Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Waterloo, she looked around to see how best she could apply her education to finding a job. The prospects were not dazzling, she says.
Miranda Fong walked straight into her dream job at Stratus winery in the Niagara Region after graduating from George Brown College's food and beverage management course. Photo: Peter Power/The Globe and Mail
Miranda Fong walked straight into her dream job at Stratus winery in the Niagara Region after graduating from George Brown College's food and beverage management course. Photo: Peter Power/The Globe and Mail
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But after graduating from George Brown College's two-year food and beverage management course last May, Ms. Fong, 24, stepped right into what she thinks is a dream job as a sales and marketing associate at Stratus winery in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
She was not alone. Kevin Lin, acting manager of career services at George Brown says 90.8 per cent of graduates from that course found jobs in their field within six months of graduation.
Mike Oliverio, 25, found himself in a similar position. He graduated from McMaster University in Hamilton with a commerce degree in 2007. He went straight to work in the accounts payable department of the City of Hamilton. He hated it.
When two friends suggested taking a one-year postgraduate course in human resources management at Humber College in Toronto, he leapt at the chance. Just before graduating last spring he had two job offers — one from the Ontario Government on a two-year internship contract and one from Staples, the business supply chain.
He took the government job and says he as "happy as a clam."
The placement rate from Humber's HR management course runs between 85 per cent and 95 per cent a year, says program co-ordinator Graeme Simpson. "I get six to 10 calls a week from companies looking to hire our graduates," he says. "Essentially, anyone who wants a job in HR after graduation can easily find one."
When it comes to equipping young people to find jobs in their chosen field after graduation, Canada's 155-plus community colleges have been a success story, says James Knight, president of the Association of Canadian Community Colleges, based in Ottawa.
"The only national statistics we have are those compiled by Statistics Canada in 2007," he says. "StatsCan reported 9 out of 10 college graduates found jobs in their field within six months of graduation.
"Each province has its own annual survey called the Key Performance Indicator and, from what I have seen, that 90-per-cent rate is bang on."
Mr. Knight offers one more telling observation. He says the Canadian Federation of Independent Business surveyed its members "and CFIB said they would be hiring 6 college grads for every university grad this year," he says.
"The great thing about colleges is they produce graduates with instantly usable skills. They have the practical knowledge employers need."
The proof of that pudding is in courses where 100-per-cent placement after graduation seems to be a standard.
At Oakville, Ont.'s Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, for example, graduates of its four-year degree program in arts and animation regularly post 100-per-cent success rates at finding jobs, as do those from its information technology security course, says Mary Preece, vice-president academic.
At Humber, graduates from its three-year package and graphic design course consistently post between 95 per cent and 100 per cent job placement rates, says Vass Klymenko, program co-ordinator.
At Lethbridge College in Alberta, those coming out of its engineering technology and agriculture technology programs enjoy a 95-per-cent-plus chance of finding a job in their field.
"Our biggest challenge is meeting demand," says Peter Leclaire, vice-president academic.
In British Columbia, Douglas College's dental assistant, health care support and dispensing optician graduates are in such high demand that their chance of finding work is about 100 per cent, says college president Scott McAlpine.
The big success Canadian community colleges are enjoying finding jobs for their graduates stem from the way they operate, say college teachers and administrators. "We are really an on-demand supplier of skilled workers to industry," says Lethbridge's Peter Leclaire, vice-president academic.
To stay on top of demand, each college has business advisory panels for every course. Those business leaders tell the college where demand for skills lies now and in the foreseeable future. Colleges then do their own research — they take into account the restraints of cost and physical plant and if the numbers make sense, create courses to meet specific needs, explains Peter Madott, associate dean at Humber's business school.
The reverse is also true.
"As we see demand lessening for a particular course, we start to wind it down," he says.
"It is a dynamic process," says the ACCC's Mr. Knight. "Colleges are not static institutions; they change the courses they offer, according to measurable demand.
Another factor in their job placement success rate is that most college courses include some form of internship or co-op placement, says Mr. Madott.
"At worst, they get job experience they can put on their résumé and maybe a letter of recommendation from their co-op employer," says Mr. Madott. "At best, the co-op employer hires them right after graduation — and that happens in a great many cases."
That is how Ms. Fong found her job with Stratus Winery.
"As part of the course we did a tour of Niagara wineries and I really like Stratus," she says. "While the company was not a regular internship employer I asked our course director if he could see if they would take me on for the co-op term, which finishes the course.
"They did and I guess they were pleased with what I had learned because they offered me a full-time job part way through the co-op term."
The future for college graduates looks even brighter, says the ACCC's Mr. Knight "Two things play heavily in college graduates' favour," he says. "The first is that we will come out of the recession with as great a demand for people with advanced skills as we did going in and then it was rated the No. 1 challenge in every survey of business.
"The second is that as the Baby Boom generation retires, there just won't be enough people to replace them all.
"Canada's community colleges are one of our greatest resources when it comes to the ability to continue driving the economy forward."
Special to The Globe and Mail
