Student employment centre open for business

Gord Keesic and Jacquee Savage are looking for people who are looking for a summer job.
The pair are summer employment officers with the local Human Resources Development Canada Centre for Students, more commonly known as the Canada Employment Centre for Students, which opened here last week.
Both students themselves, they said they know how important getting meaningful summer employment is for students.
“We know what predicament students are in,” Savage said, noting many student employees need the money from their jobs for tuition.
Although close to 40 job applications were filled out in the first week of operation, Keesic said he’s hoping to have a lot more students come in.
“Only 20 percent of jobs are advertised in the newspaper,” he said, noting many of the job postings at the centre aren’t advertised anywhere else.
“So there’s 80 percent of jobs out there,” he added. “You just have to know where to look for them. That’s why we’re here.”
Keesic said the student employment centre also offers group information sessions for students, such as how to prepare resumes or creative job starts for entrepreneurs.
But it also has a lot to offer for employers.
“For an employer, we can make referrals or pre-screen applicants for a job according to their references,” Keesic said. “We cater to both employers and students.”
Keesic and Savage will be doing a registration blitz at Fort High tomorrow and Friday, with another one slated for Rainy River High School before the school year is over.
And they’re hoping the number of students registered with the centre, now in its 30th year of operation, will start climbing dramatically.
“We’ve been really, really busy [but] we feel we need more students to register,” Keesic said.
“It’s very inspiring to see students coming in looking for employment,” Savage added. “In fact, we’d like to see more students come in.”