Proud? You bet!  

Once again in 2009, Macleans’ annual university ranking guide named McGill Canada’s top university in its class (namely, the medical-doctoral category). And,
as well as earning first place for its reputation for quality, based on a survey of corporate recruiters, university officials, high-school principals and guidance counselors, McGill students earned top marks for having the highest average entrance grades (89.7 per cent)
and the highest graduation rate (83.9 per cent).

But the accolades don’t stop there. McGill was acknowledged as one of the world’s highest ranking universities, placing 18th in the prestigious Times Higher Education-QS world university rankings. This marked the sixth straight year that McGill was named one of the world’s Top 25 universities by the THE-QS.

CACEE – Who?

CACEE, the Canadian Association of Career Educators and Employers, is a national non-profit partnership of employers, recruiters and career educators. Their goal is to provide information, advice, professional development opportunities and other services to students, employers and career service professionals.

As active members of CACEE, we at CaPS encourage employers interested in meeting other recruiters and university career service professionals to join this association. For more information, please visit their website at: www.cacee.com.

Other career centres on campus

The Career Planning Service (CaPS) is McGill’s central career centre.  We have an office on both the downtown and Macdonald campuses.  Did you know that there are several faculties at McGill that also have career centres?  This works well for those employers who prefer to recruit students from only a particular faculty. Other employers prefer to work only with us as a central office and we then coordinate recruitment with the other centres as necessary.  The choice is yours. 

Other centres on campus include: Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Education, Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Law, Faculty of Management and the Faculty of Science.

For a complete listing and contact information, click here.

Contact Us

McGill Career Planning Service (CaPS)
3600 McTavish, Suite 2200
Montreal, QC H3A 1Y2

Tel: 514-398-3304
Email | Web

Optimistic Economic Outlook for 2010

Ushering in the New Year brings hope and this year is no exception. The good news is that we’re starting off on the right foot. By all accounts, we’re now in a phase of economic recovery and all employment indicators point to the worst being behind us. Even hard hit sectors like the auto industry are now showing signs of a turn-around.

Although some challenges still lie ahead, 2010 has the potential to bear more fruit than the lean days of 2009. While hiring volumes at large companies may continue to decrease, small to mid-sized companies are providing a bright light for university graduates about to enter the job market. Employers with fewer than 500 employees have indicated that they expect hiring at their companies to jump by 15% this year… that’s music to the ears of McGill’s current stream of 6,500 graduating students.

Optimism aside, McGill students can still use all the help they can get when it comes to finding work. Employers like you make a huge difference. We’d like to thank you for working with CaPS through myFuture (our online career management system) and for considering McGill students in your recruiting strategy. Students benefit tremendously from targeted job postings, internships and establishing networks outside of the academic arena. Once again, we thank you for your participation and for opening your doors to McGill students. Wishing you all the best for 2010!

In this issue:

What can CaPS do for you?
A Big Year Ahead at CaPS
Rethinking the Arts Degree?
Going Global with International Students
Internships: A Win-Win for All
Contact us

What can CaPS do for you?

At CaPS, our main goal is to help students with their career development and their search for employment opportunities. We also like to think of ourselves as your partners when it comes to identifying and recruiting McGill’s best candidates for your company or organization. We can help you with your recruiting campaign by advertising your career opportunities on McGill’s myFuture website, arranging your company presentations, collecting student CVs and providing on-campus interview rooms. We also connect employers with student clubs and associations.

For more info, please contact Alexandra Preimess at 514-398-3304 x0653.

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A Big Year Ahead at CaPS

2010 is already shaping up to be an action-packed year at CaPS. On top of our usual steady calendar of student workshops, this semester we’ll be holding five major events aimed at different segments of McGill’s student population.

• B.A. Career Week is aimed at showcasing various employment opportunities for B.A. students;
• Musical Crossroads will give music students the chance to explore various musical career path options;
• Diversity Week will introduce students to individuals working with diverse communities;
• Green Week will address students interested in working in the Environmental sector.
• Graduate Career Month - Research Careers Outside of Academia will present a series of panels for Masters, PhD and post-doctoral fellows who are looking for work outside of the academic world.
  

We are always on the lookout for qualified, enthusiastic speakers for our panels, so if you’d like to participate, please contact Jean Hepworth at 514-398-3304 x0598.

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Rethinking the Arts Degree?

In today’s challenging economy, productivity is paramount. At times like these, companies are more likely to invest in sales training, project management, budgeting and skills that are easier to link to the bottom line.

Not so fast, say some employers who believe that the ‘soft skills’ associated with an arts degree can have a significant impact on profitability. Topping the list of highly desired skills in various industry sectors are superior writing and communication abilities.

• Poorly written documents waste time, cause tasks to be performed incorrectly and can create costly miscommunication with customers.

• In worst case scenarios, such as instruction manuals and contracts, inferior writing can lead to liability and huge corporate losses.

The problem is so pervasive that blue-chip companies in the U.S. pay $3.1 billion annually for remedial “writing skills” training for employees. With so much of an organization’s potential ROI at stake, quality graduates from Arts programs should be given higher priority on every employer’s radar screen.

To read more, click: Why Employers Like Liberal Arts Grads by Laura Morsch @ CareerBuilder.com.

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Going Global with International Students

McGill is renowned for attracting the brightest students from across Canada, the United States, and abroad. What many people don’t know is that the university’s student body is made up of almost 20% international students. While the majority come from the US and France, McGill’s students come from over 100 countries in all. Many may have just the skills you’re looking for in today’s increasingly globalized world. They can provide a range of assets from multilingualism and cultural awareness to insights into untapped foreign markets. Don’t under-estimate what international students can bring to your organization… by opening your doors to them, you may be surprised what doors they can open for you.

• Current international students can obtain an Off Campus Work Permit allowing them to work off campus for up to 20 hours a week during the study semester and full time during school breaks.

• Under the Post-Graduate Work Permit Program, recent international graduates from Canadian universities are now able to work in Canada for up to three years after graduation. This recently updated program comes with no restrictions regarding the type of employment.

For employers, hiring an international student is a simple, straight-forward process. For information, visit: http://www.mcgill.ca/internationalstudents/employers/.

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Internships: A Win-Win for All

Internships provide employers the opportunity to give students real-world experience in their field and in some cases, the chance to determine if a candidate is the right ‘fit’ prior to making an official commitment. They can be designed with a specific project or assignment in mind or can be a mix of activities. A typical project might include:

• marketing and market research
• design and implementation of databases
• creating/updating or developing content for a website
• research and development
• reviewing work processes and efficiency

“A common misconception is that organizations and individuals don’t have the time to run an internship program,” says Matthew Zinman, president of Z University, a workplace readiness company dedicated to promoting internships. “What employers and managers need to realize is that students are highly capable of contributing all kinds of business value… All employers need to do is make an organization commitment to an internship system and have supervisors reprioritize some of their time to oversee students and get projects off the proverbial backburner.”

If you don’t already have an internship program in place with McGill, consider starting one and watch your company’s productivity grow. For details of internship offices at McGill, please consult: www.mcgill.ca/internships/programs.

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