“Maybe I’m being naive or something,” says Wong, “but I still want to strive to look for the type of jobs I want to do. And there have been people, professors and peers telling me, ‘you should be flexible.’ Even on the news I hear that a lot. But I guess for me, I’ve been through four years of education... so I’m still going for those high position jobs. But considering the fact that I haven’t even gotten an interview yet, it is concerning.”
Which isn’t to say she’s been inflexible or anything. She's been casting her net wide, relatively speaking, applying to jobs as a sales rep at a catering company, as a trade show planner at Tourism Toronto, and even at the Berkeley Church at Queen and Sherbourne, a church that’s been converted into a private event venue. And that’s just to begin.
A taste of the new reality
Wong isn’t the only one aiming high. Ryerson finance major Chris Alleyne is also shooting for the top, having “scored interviews with RBC, Edward Jones Investments, and TD Bank, among others. So far though, the job search isn't turning up any offers, and Alleyne is starting to wonder if he should be exploring other options.
“I do have an entrepreneurship idea I’m exploring for the summer... my eventual goal is to run my own business, and maybe this will be the thing that kick-starts it.”
Alleyne is VP of finance with the Ryerson Commerce Society, so he speaks to a lot of people “in student clubs, people putting in extra effort,” and so far he’s seeing frustration everywhere. “We come out of school and we expect the world. We think the world owes us something, and the truth is, it doesn’t... but people want high salaries and great jobs right out of school, and we’re having a hard time accepting it might not happen. And I can’t blame them, you know, so many people have huge debts and loans and everything else.”
A recent study by the Consumers’ Association of Canada indicated that six in ten young Canadians have some degree of personal debt. And relatively low-interest student loans aren’t even the most common—44 per cent of indebted young Canadians are dealing with student loans, but 65 per cent are paying off credit card debts. One-third owe $10,000 or more.
Graduates are also heading into a hugely competitive labour market. Manpower Canada’s latest survey of Canadian employers’ hiring intentions indicates that only 15 per cent of employers are planning to increase their payrolls next quarter. Meanwhile, Statistics Canada predicts that nearly a quarter million students will graduate from Canadian universities this year.
According to Britt Wight, director of business development with Manpower Canada, “Students have to study the trends in their desired industry... and expectations have to be adapted. Job-seekers can no longer afford the luxury of being choosy, since it’s an employer’s market."
Getting creative
“There’s work out there—just during this time it’s more challenging to find,” says Aino Arro, a career counsellor at Ryerson. “And people may need to expand their horizons and think more creatively and broadly about what kind of work and where they do it.”
Arro echoes Alleyne in recommending that students leave their sense of entitlement at the door, and encourages them to be more creative with the job hunt.
“Eveybody comes in for help with resumes, less so for interview prep and cover letters and how to go about looking for work... the resume is the cornerstone, but all the other methodologies are really critical," says Arro. "Once we’ve got the interview, we [think we] just have to go in, our personality’s going to shine, but then we come out without a job. Sometimes overconfidence can be just as debilitating as under-confidence.”
She also recommends looking that students in Toronto look outside the GTA, especially given than Manpower expects Ontario to be the hardest-hit province.
“Saskatchewan apparently, it still blows my mind, Saskatchewan is in hiring mode... a lot of people are loathe to return to their home towns when they’ve come the big city, but sometimes that is a good thing to do, where you are known and have some contacts or connections.”
For Wong though, Toronto is home. And while she once entertained the idea of working internationally, she now says, “I have to take care of my family, so it’s better for me to stay in Toronto.”
Alleyne would prefer to stay here too, but he’s willing to go where chance leads him. “It’s a numbers game,” he says. “The more you put out resumes, the more you put yourself out there, you stand a better chance of getting a job. Maybe it’s not the job you want, but sometimes you don’t even know what job you want until you’ve already got it.”
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