Your Dream Job: A Click Away
Every month, nearly two million Canadians are on-line looking for work

BY STUART FOXMAN

In the winter of 2000, after spending about two years working for a managerial-consulting firm, 34-year-old Brent Willson of Guelph, Ont., found himself unemployed. Rather than scour the help-wanted sections of the newspapers, Willson headed to the local employment centre and sat down at a computer. All day long, for three weeks, he searched on-line job boards such as Jobshark, Workopolis and Monster, looking for a job in sales management.

He soon spotted an intriguing prospect -- a Toronto company called Teranet, which maintains Ontario’s land-registration system. “I checked their web site and learned all about their business,” says Willson. “They’re on the leading edge of technology, and the job posted meant a step up for me. I would have more responsibilities, a higher salary, and there’s a ton of possibilities at Teranet.” He landed an interview soon after, and when Teranet offered him the job of sales manager in March 2000, Willson jumped at the chance.

“The Internet was easy to use, there were lots of jobs available, and e-mail is a great way of getting your résumé out fast,” he says today. “It’s the best way to find a job.”

Willson is among the tens of thousands of Canadians who are clicking their way to a better future. Ken Simms, 40, is another. A resident of Ladner, a Vancouver suburb, he sold advertising for magazines and community newspapers for 15 years. Last year, looking to get involved with a company that embraced new technology, he signed up with three on-line job boards: Jobshark, Careerclick and Workopolis. Selecting the advertising category, Simms entered “sales,” “high tech” and “Vancouver” as some of his criteria and by December landed a job as an advertising account executive with Dominion Information Services.

“To do a full job search, there’s only one way to go -- on-line,” says Simms. “The very fact that these job boards are available anytime, anywhere, and that you can do such in-depth preparation -- and even e-mail your résumé -- is phenomenal!”

A few years ago, most job listings on the Internet were in high-tech fields. “Today you can find everything from programmers to forklift drivers,” says Mark Swartz, a Toronto career consultant and author of Get Wired, You’re Hired.

Swartz estimates that as many as 100,000 Canadian jobs are posted at any given time. According to Media Metrix Canada, a media-research firm, up to 1.9 million Canadians visit a career site each month.

Besides the big-name job boards, most major newspapers and trade publications put their classified listings on-line, letting job seekers look for work across town, in another province or around the world. There are also career sections on corporate web sites, and provincial- and federal-government job sites, like that of Human Resources Development Canada. No computer? No problem. Many public libraries offer free Internet access and will show you how to use it.

Expand Your Horizons

“If you’re willing to be mobile, the Internet can be really useful,” says Phillip Jarvis, founding president of Canada WorkinfoNET, which includes links to on-line job and training resources.

Last year 27-year-old Éric Bernard of Thetford Mines, Que., decided he needed a change. He was working as a programmer in Quebec City when he heard about the Jobboom site.

Eager to live abroad, Bernard typed in “Europe” and “computer science,” and found 50 possibilities immediately. He sent a résumé to Genicorp, a Paris-based information-technology consulting firm; 15 minutes later, they e-mailed back, asking him for an interview.

Bernard met people from Genicorp at the company’s Montreal office in November and, two days later, got the job. He then returned to the Web to search for leads on apartments in Paris and learn about the cost of living there.

In January he was on his way to Paris -- his first time on a plane and to Europe -- to start a new life. Says Bernard, “It’s a dream come true.”

Do Your Homework

The Internet is also valuable for researching potential employers. “If you have an interview with a company, asking them what they do is not a good start,” says Margaret Dikel, co-author of The Guide to Internet Job Searching. “With the Internet, you can find out about the company first and see if it’s for you.”

Before Ken Simms met his new employer for the first time, he pored over the company’s web site, studying everything from its operations and mission statement to employment policies. He was struck by the company’s positioning as a “fun and dynamic work environment,” and by the fact that employees were featured in enthusiastic presentations.

“What came across is that the company values its staff,” Simms says. “And my expectations have been met: There’s a real team spirit here.”

A company web site can be a wealth of information, agrees Kathy Harris, a career consultant in Kingston, Ont. Harris is also co-ordinator of career information at Career Services at Queen’s University. “Look at the company’s mandate and also at descriptions of the jobs that are posted,” she suggests. “If the company says that it’s fast-paced and looking for multitaskers, and you’re a methodical worker, maybe it’s not a good fit.”

The design of the web site itself -- conservative and straightforward, or wild and wacky -- can also tell you something about the organization. “Ask yourself if you can relate to that image or the work that is described,” Harris suggests.

Test the Waters

Sue Sparkes-Hoskins of Calgary was unhappy working in sales for a payroll-service provider. She found the workplace to be highly bureaucratic and felt her ideas and experience weren’t valued.

But after ten years, the 38-year-old was anxious about moving on. “It was a case of the devil I knew,” she says.

For several months she explored her options using the Monster site, and in the summer of 2000 landed a job with MoneyStream Services Inc., a company that processes debit payments. She started in sales, but within a few months was promoted to payroll-product manager.

“What I’m doing now is better than I ever could have dreamed,” Sparkes-Hoskins says. “I look forward to going to work every day.”

Scooping the Competition

Job seekers aren’t the only ones flourishing on-line. Employers are finding the Internet an invaluable recruitment tool.

Lisa Holden Rovers of Calgary, the Western Canada regional human resources manager for Eaton Cutler-Hammer, a manufacturer of electric products, regularly posts jobs on Jobshark. Besides being a way to cast a wider net when looking for new employees, she says posting on Jobshark costs substantially less than running newspaper ads, and it is much more efficient and convenient.

Chris Yankou is human resources manager for Teranet, the company that hired Brent Willson. Last year Teranet hired about 100 employees, 20 of them through an on-line site. Yankou says that filling a job vacancy through a newspaper ad took about five months. Using the Internet, Teranet slashed that time by half and found almost 20 qualified candidates. “Using the Internet is essential,” says Yankou.

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ADAPTED FROM AN ARTICLE BY DANIEL LEVINE