The Canadian government has a well organized set of online resources for human resource development. The web site and the agency are called Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. There are a number of public-private partnerships that are designed to further Canadian human resources development in a variety of industry sectors.
The Human Resources and Skills Development web page can be found at http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/ en/home.shtml. There are links to the province governments’ HR websites. There is also an entire section devoted to educational resources for job seekers, including public resources for loans and school financing. Also on the Canadian Human Resources and Skills Development page is a comprehensive list of training and adult education sites, both public and private.
In the field of information technology, there is a non-profit Canadian organization called the Software Human Resources Council. Their website (http://www.shrc.ca/index_e.html) is an informative resource on industry trends, occupational skills that are evolving and the state of the labor market in information technology in Canada. The site provides a profiler tool to help you build a resume and identify your strengths.
You can find a long list of web sites with job listings in the industry, government agencies that provide human resource services both nationally and in the regional governments. Many of the agencies are members of the SHRC. You can also find a public sector job bank listing there.
In the private sector there are a number of schools and colleges, both online and on campus, that are designed to help Canadians further their education. Some of these schools offer complete college degree programs and others provide concentrated courses of study, some of which lead to certification, that are designed to get the student into the workforce. One of those is CDI College, which has thirty three campuses scattered through seven provinces. CDI focuses on three areas of study divided into the School of Business, the School of Technology and the School of Health Care.
Some of CDI’s programs focus on technical job training that will get you into an industry and give you an opportunity to decide how far up the professional ladder you wish to go and whether or not you will need additional education. For instance, in their medical field training programs there are nine different courses of study for every imaginable type of medical or nursing assistant.
Under business, their legal department offers five legal assistant and legal clerical training programs and five paralegal programs. Two of the paralegal programs lead to certification. In the paralegal field today, you can achieve an associate’s or bachelor’s degree as well. The CDI courses provide an excellent beginning that will allow you to work if you choose to pursue further study through online programs or night classes.
With typical Canadian efficiency, there is a national online job bank located at http://www.jobbank.gc.ca/Intro_en.asp . It is the largest online job bank in the nation, listing over 700,000 jobs per year. And, as is customary with all communications Canadian, it is done in both French and English.