The interaction between people looking for work and employers looking to hire is a layered process that is not always easily maneuvered without proper guidance for each side. Providing a valuable service to ensure that process results in more employers hiring job seekers is one of the major goals of the Centre for Skills Development.
Serving more than 20,000 people annually via offices in Burlington, Oakville, Milton, and Mississauga, the Centre for Skills Development offers a variety of services include one-to-one job search assistance and career coaching, settlement services for newcomers and English language classes, academic upgrading and funded pre-apprenticeship skilled trades programs.
One of the long-standing collaborations is working closely with employers, providing free professional recruitment with access to pre-screened candidates, financial wage and training incentives and customized skilled trades training.
“We’re here to serve the community and to help ordinary people find jobs, but we’re also here to help employers get the workforce they need to help them build and sustain their businesses,” said Ellen Faraday, Senior Program Coordinator for Centre for Skills Development. “We’re matching suitable candidates to employers. We look at people, their resumes, their skills. But we also are looking at employer needs that fit the job description. There has to be a match.”
According to Faraday, Centre for Skills Development can provide a valuable resource to small and medium-sized employers that may not have the capacity to handle HR responsibilities like recruitment, interviewing, and hiring. In those examples, Centre for Skills Development can often offer additional services.
“Sometimes, if a potential employer requires it, we can offset a percentage of the cost of onboarding and training to help employers with the process,” said Faraday. “Some of the bigger companies have their own full HR departments. For smaller employers that have someone doing HR along with 15 other things, sharing a little onboarding cost goes a long way to helping them be successful in their hiring.”
Centre for Skills Development has a full workplace development team that can work with employers in any industry to amplify recruitment efforts depending on need and current market conditions for workers.
For more information, connect with Centre for Skills Development online.