The UTM Career Centre celebrated its 40th anniversary last Wednesday with an open house event at its office.
Offering both free food and a raffle with prizes to be won, the office space was packed full of members of the UTM community.
The event honoured the UTM Career Centre’s achievements in its robust forty-year history and reaffirmed their commitment to assist UTM students for successful careers following graduation.
“It’s been 40 years. We’ve been here since 1979, which is kind of a big deal,” said Maria Ruiz, Career Outreach Assistant.
The Career Centre has won several awards in recognition for their student outreach initiatives like their pop-up shops which made them finalists for the 2013 NACE Members’ Choice Award.
“Instead of just typical tabling and marketing, it’s more of an in-demand service idea. So, we take our counsellors and some of our student staff that are trained in helping students and we take it to students,” said Ruiz.
“We answer students’ questions. If students have questions about resumes, about interviews, about what to do with their degree, we answer them right then and there,” continued Ruiz.
“It’s really an opportunity for us to get out, let students know about us, and tell students how to find us and what our services are about. And we did just actually end up winning an award for that.”
In 2017, the Career Centre also ranked fourth in Canada for most impressive Career Centre model.
Just last year the Career Centre also won the Excellence through Innovation award from U of T for their program plans, a guide for your time at UTM with a focus on your program. The plans were downloaded over 18 thousand times in the 2018-2019 academic year.
Looking forward to the future, Ruiz said the Career Centre is looking to provide students with greater accessibility to Career Centre services.
“One of the things that’s been on our radar for a long time is potentially moving the location [of the Career Centre]. That’s not necessarily under our control but we do want to be able to serve our students better in terms of it being easier for them to find us.”
In terms of more accessible services, the Career Centre might be looking to expand their services to online platforms.
“Something we hear a lot is ‘this workshop is going on during my class’ or ‘I want to go to this networking event, but I have a two-hour commute.’ So [we are looking into] what other format or what other options we have that we can offer students to be able to access us a little bit more,” said Ruiz.
“We’re thinking about an online chat service that might be piloted at some point. It’s just about being a little more adaptable.”
The UTM Career Centre hosts sessions and workshops each week to support students looking for employment and experience.
This week a pop-up shop will be set up in front of the library on Wednesday from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m., a LinkedIn Photo Day session on Thursday from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. at their DV 3094 office, and their weekly resume or cover letter critiques same-day sign-up day on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
