Humber health sciences fair draws job seekers

Nov 26, 2012 | News

By Julie Fish

Students from Humber’s School of Health Sciences attended in number a job fair Monday at North campus despite static employment rates in the Ontario health care sector.

Statistics Canada’s latest labour force survey reported a 0.8 per cent drop of employment over the past year.

“It’s good for the health sciences students to start looking now and networking with the employers to prepare when they graduate next April,” Vicki Reay, an employment advisor with Humber’s Career Centre told Humber News.

Sarah Jorstad, the health science fair’s coordinator, said students seemed to look forward to the annual event.

“They definitely look for specific companies or hospitals to come,” Jorstad told Humber News. “We bring in (health agencies from) other provinces too because they have good programs for students to help them with their jobs.”

The First Nations and Inuit Health Branch from the Manitoba region was one of several dozen companies with a booth set up to attract future employees.

“[We’re here] to get some keeners that want to go up north in Manitoba and work,” Jackie Graham, a practice advisor for the Home Community Care Program in Manitoba, told Humber News.

Students dressed in scrubs wandered the student center collecting business cards, pamphlets and free pens.

“Without the fair it would be harder to find a job, but with the fair, it helps because we have all this info now,” Shannae Brown, a personal support worker student told Humber News.

Jorstad said the fair was a success.

“We’re pretty much at max (capacity) right now and that’s going across many different programs so it’s good to have different health sciences programs represented.”

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