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Posted By yyjworks on May 19, 2011

I’ve added this lovely photo of Victoria’s natural beauty not just so you can ‘pin’ my website but also because I think it is a really good metaphor for employment in the city. Because you may not realize it but this photo is not of a Garry Oak meadow but is actually a snapshot of an electrical box in my neighbourhood. Yes, even here in Lotus Land not everything is as it seems and you need a job – you can’t live on air after all.

The first three months of 2012 are nearly over and big changes are on the way for me. In September 2012 I will begin a Master’s in Public Health in Sweden. I am pretty sure that I will be attending Uppsala University since I have been admitted there but there is still, I’m guessing, a small chance I could also be admitted to the Karolinska Institute’s program where I am on a waitlist. I’ll be leaving Canada at the end of June since accommodation is notoriously hard to find in Sweden’s ‘university towns’ and I want to get a jump on the arriving hordes. Stay tuned for more news.

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Welcome to 2012. The job I mentioned in the paragraph below has slid from 25 hours a week to 15 and so I’ve now got more time to devote to this blog and other projects. I’m going to make a commitment to do a post every Friday by 9:00 pm Pacific Time (or else have a damn good excuse why I didn’t) as well as the fresh sheet every weekday. I may even join Facebook (should I or has Google+ made it obsolete?) – love to have your opinion on that if you’d care to comment below or send me an email. I’m also going to get back into tweeting. (January 6, 2012)

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I’ve left my earlier introduction below although much of it no longer applies. I now have my own domain and although the blog isn’t perfect I’m pretty pleased with it. There are ads from our friends (they are our friends aren’t they?) at Google to try and at least recoup hosting costs. In the middle of August I’m starting a ‘real’ job that will probably be 3.5 days per week. That will of course cut into the time I can spend on this blog but despite that I do hope to expand the site by adding editorial content on a variety of issues and static pages on topics like Victoria’s biggest employers and the essential tools that every 21st century job hunter should have in their tackle box. Stay tuned. (July 29, 2011)

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Welcome to my humble blog. I hope that you’ll find it useful and that you’ll tell all your Victoria-resident (or Victoria-bound) job-hunting friends about it. After getting started, both with this blog and with blogging in general, with Blogger I’ve left that platform and made the move to WordPress. This move was partially prompted by Blogger’s recent day-long outage as well as a desire to learn WordPress. Of course blogs taking advantage of WordPress.com‘s free service can’t have ads so monetization will have to wait. But perhaps this is for the best – let’s see if I can build a following and some steady traffic before I invest in the admittedly low cost option of going it on my own.

Most of this blog is built around pages but I’ll add more bloggy (meaning real-time, reactive and interactive posts rather than more static information) content as we go. Hope you visit often (although ideally I’ll be so successful at helping you find work that you will come back out of interest rather than because you’re still searching for a job). (May 19, 2011)

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Posted By on May 20, 2012

One of the newest ships in the BC Ferries' fleet

The CRD’s information on employers in the transportation sector features only the area’s two biggest – BC Ferries (with approximately 1,300 employees) and BC Transit (with approximately 880). But of course there are many other transportation-oriented businesses from airlines (including ‘specialty’ companies like Harbour Air and HeliJet), trucking companies and taxi firms. And although they might also be included in other categories there are also a significant number of people employed in Victoria by companies such as Canada Post, UPS, DHL and Purolator which you could argue are in the transportation business although they move around goods rather than people.

Obviously the largest (numerically) employer in the transportation sector, BC Ferries, wouldn’t exist if Victoria’s geography and history were not as they are. If you are not aware, Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia making it a natural hub in terms of government and some (but definitely not all) business sectors. What makes Victoria unique is that it is located on Vancouver Island which is separated by some 44km of ocean from the provincial mainland. For over 50 years (since 1960 to be precise) BC Ferries has been taking people, their cars and of course a multitude of goods ranging from groceries to gasoline from the mainland to various ports – but mainly Victoria (Swartz Bay) and more recently Nanaimo (Duke Point).

The transportation sector offers a wide variety of jobs and rather paradoxically the region’s biggest two employers peak and slump at different times throughout the year. Although in its early days resource industries (logging, fishing and to a much lesser extent mining) were at the top of the heap in Victoria and on Vancouver Island today tourism, education and high-tech are much more important to the economy.

As you might expect the first in this list – tourism – reaches its height during the months of June through August when the weather is good and kids all across North America (and in other parts of the world) are off school. Thus BC Ferries increases its daily sailings and hires seasonal staff during this time. Meanwhile BC Transit, which through the Upass system provides transit passes to the almost 30,000 students of the University of Victoria and Camosun College, scales back its service for the summer.

Other transportation sector industries – like cab companies, airlines and private bus firms – also increase their service levels in the summer. Not only do tourists arrive via BC Ferries and various airlines but the city sees upwards of 200 cruise ships dockingeach year at Ogden Point – mostly in the May-August period – which brings over 400,000 visitors into the city and surrounding area. These folks are mostly transported by private bus company vehicles into the downtown core for sightseeing or out onto the peninsula to go to Butchart Gardens.

The BC Economy Guide says that “Not surprisingly, trades & transportation equipment operators account for the lion’s share of the workforce in this industry, with 57% employed in this occupational group. Many are truck drivers (they make up 18% of total employment in transportation & warehousing), but other common occupations include delivery, bus & taxi drivers, material handlers, taxi drivers, longshore workers, aircraft ramp attendants, and aircraft & vehicle mechanics.”

About another quarter of those employed in this sector (which includes ‘warehousing’ in the BC Economy Guide) are in “business, financial & administrative occupations. These are mainly letter carriers, postal clerks, couriers & messengers, shippers & receivers, and dispatchers”. The remainder is made up of those in managerial positions (~4%), natural and applied science jobs (~8% – like “deck officers on vessels”) and sales and service (~7% – like ticket agents or flight attendants).

Obviously there is a lot of scope in these job categories from those with entry-level skills – which would suit those working in sales and service or administrative positions – to those with advanced qualifications – like airplane pilots, vessel captains and air-traffic controllers. As expected wages are at the lower end for many of these service jobs, especially since they are rarely union jobs and are also seasonal while salaries can be very good for those at the upper levels whose members are usually unionized. For example, pilots that guide cargo ships into and out of port make upwards of $300,000 annually.

I don’t know if this statistic from the BC Economy Guide holds true in Victoria but in the province as a whole “Three out of four (77%) workers in transportation & warehousing are male”. Although Vancouver is by far the largest center for workers in this sector about 15% of those employed in transportation and warehousing work on Vancouver Island and its nearby coastal area. The seasonality of many of the Victoria jobs in this sector is actually helpful for those who may be attending university and looking for work during their summer vacations.

The outlook for the sector is said to be fairly good for the next five years with the share of GDP forecast to drop slightly while employment within the sector should grow a little bit ahead of the average. Bottom line is that this sector offers good job opportunities, although far from spectacular wages, to those just getting their feet wet in the labour market.

Young people (or those more mature) can do well if they’ve got ‘the hustle’ that might set them apart from their colleagues working in the service or administrative subsections of the transportation sector. In positions requiring more advanced skills and experience there is money to be made but these jobs can be hard to secure due to intense competition.

Here are links to job listings at some of the companies in this sector:

• BC Ferries
• BC Transit
• Harbour Air
• Air Canada (not specific to Victoria)
• Greater Victoria Harbour Authority
• HeliJet

Next week I’ll focus in on one of the companies within the transportation sector in Victoria.

Category: Resources for Job Seekers | No Comments »
Tags: Air Canada, airlines, BC Ferries, BC Transit, Canada Post, courier companies, cruise ships, DHL, Harbour Air, HeliJet, Purolator, taxi cabs, transportation, trucking companies, UPS

Posted By on May 18, 2012

On Wednesday evening (May 16, 2012) my faithful and previously rock-solid reliable Toshiba laptop showed me a blue screen of death, which said (overly optimistically as it turns out) that if this was the first time I’d seen this screen I should just restart the machine and likely all would be well. Not true.

Luckily though the data on the hard drive was fine and, since I’m fortunate enough to work in a computer store, I was able to remove the drive and borrow the equipment necessary to allow me to transfer required data onto the new machine I was compelled to purchase. That’s what I’m typing this post on – a new Acer Aspire One netbook which seems very slow and exceedingly tiny (screen and keyboard-wise) compared to the old machine but is bearable.

Though I could have done without the expense at this particular moment there are lots of good aspects to this incident. First of all I am lucky it happened now rather than just as I was ready to leave Canada for Sweden or when I was already there since I am sure technology will cost more there. And, as mentioned above, it is nice to be able to have expertise and equipment at my disposal to help me get set up with my new machine. And a third rather unexpected benefit is that the netbook is really too small and slow to let me participate in some of the time-wasters I was spending too much time on previously.

Despite having more time I am not sure if I’ll get the fresh sheet and the week’s blog post out but I’m going to give it a good try. After all I also purchased my plane ticket to the UK last night so it was a VERY expensive day and I need to put on my thinking cap and figure out some way to generate some funds to help offset this unexpected expense. Have a good long weekend everyone.

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Posted By on May 11, 2012

Once again I am going to focus on the educational organization that is not numerically the largest employer within the Victoria education sector – Camosun College. Mainly I’m doing this because I presently work for the University of Victoria so am hesitant to present them – perhaps in a few months I’ll consider doing a feature on them. Here’s some background information on Camosun College:

• the college is a bit younger than the University of Victoria having “welcomed its first students in 1971” (versus 1963 for UVic)
• Camosun is “a local Lekwungen (Songhees) First Nation name meaning “where different waters meet and are transformed”
• Camosun’s two Victoria campuses “serve approximately 12,500 learners (8,600 full-time equivalents) registered in degree, diploma and certificate programs and a further 7,400 registrants in courses offered through our continuing education department”
• according to a 2007 report “the local economy annually receives roughly $816.6 million in income due to the past and present efforts of Camosun – the college is truly an engine of economic growth!”

According to the CRD about 1,100 people worked at Camosun’s two campuses in 2011. The Lansdowne Campus is centered around the historic Young Building which from 1915 until 1956 (except during the Second World War when it was used as a military hospital) housed Vancouver Island’s branch of the province’s ‘Normal School’ where teacher training took place. Teacher education moved to the University of British Columbia in 1956 and Victoria College, which had been sharing the space up to that point with the Normal School, moved to Gordon Head and became the University of Victoria in 1963. The Lansdowne Campus is primarily where Arts and Science and University Transfer students attend. I am unable to find any information on the number of employees at each campus.

The Interurban Campus has a much shorter history – it was opened in 1995. Here the concentration is on vocational and trades training as well as Business, IT courses and a very well respected culinary program. A real cherry on the top of this campus’s sundae is the Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence (PISE). Elite athletes – of which Victoria has many – talented amateurs and the larger community are all poised to benefit from the PISE which is “led by a world class team delivering innovative education and applied research, expert driven services and programs, sport science and medicine, and leading edge facilities”.

There is quite a range of jobs available at Camosun College although entry-level positions seem to be less prevalent than at other educational institutions (for example University of Victoria). In addition, with the exception of the cafeteria at the Interurban campus which is run by the culinary students, all the food/beverage outlets at both campuses are run by Aramark and staff are employed by this company not by Camosun. This means a significant number of entry-level positions, such as kitchen help or cashier, are not present at Camosun College.

In addition, Camosun College has recently made some unpopular cuts, most notably the axing of the Applied Communication Program as well as the on-campus radio station, due to funding from the provincial government which has remained flat over time. A large number of staff positions were also eliminated and it is estimated that 46 jobs would need to go – although “Officials expect to eliminate most of the positions through attrition and early retirements, but 15 to 20 employees could receive layoff notices”. All this means that at the moment job prospects at Camosun don’t look very bright.

When there are postings available the pay is about the same as at other union shops in the city such as the Provincial Government or at VIHA and possibly a bit better than the latter depending on the position. Also, there are often positions that involve very few hours per week – for example cashier positions at the bookstore at the Lansdowne Campus or gym attendant – these are perfect for students allowing for employment at a decent rate of pay that can be scheduled around classes.

In terms of Camosun’s reputation and perception by the community in Victoria I would have said it was overwhelmingly positive until this latest funding and cutting episode. Camosun is seen, in my opinion, as a more cost-effective, friendlier, less elitist and more practically-oriented educational path for young people (or even those returning to the workforce or upgrading skills) than the University of Victoria and certainly several times more affordable than Royal Roads University which is unabashed about its role as “Canada’s University for Working Professionals”.

“Camosun College is a public post-secondary institution. The Board of Governors administers the college on behalf of the government of BC and the Ministry of Advanced Education, as legislated by the College and Institute Act.” The board is comprised of 8 appointed members, 4 elected members (1 faculty, 1 support staff and 2 students – all elected by their peers) and 2 non-voting members. “The role of the board is to act on behalf of the public, and oversee the affairs of the institution including property, revenue and expenditures. The board must establish the key policies that guide the activity of the organization, and is responsible for hiring their one employee, the President. The board focuses on policy and strategic leadership rather than administrative detail.” (Learn more about the board and its activities).

So, in ‘normal’ times, when not under funding constraints, Camosun College is a good place for those with some experience in the work world to find a position. At the moment however employment opportunities are severely limited at the college. However, hopefully this too will pass and you should give the college’s job posting page a look when you are doing a survey of job openings within the city.

Next week I’ll give an introduction to the transportation sector – Victoria’s fourth largest employer.

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Tags: ACP, Applied Communications Program, Camosun College, Interurban Campus, Lansdowne Campus, Normal School, Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence, PISE

Posted By on May 4, 2012

Education is big business in Victoria. School District 61, which has just over 2,000 employees, has 49 schools in Victoria while Saanich (SD63) has 14 schools and 1,500 staff and Sooke (SD62) has 29 schools (although some are as far away as Port Renfrew some 100 kilometers from Victoria) and 1,300 staff. Then there are the city’s post-secondary institutions – the University of Victoria with approximately 4,900 full and part-time staff, Camosun College with about 1,100 employees and Royal Roads University with about 400 personnel.

The city also has two private schools – St. Michaels University School and Glenlyon Norfolk School that employ (as far as I can estimate from LinkedIn) probably around 100 people between the two of them. There are also a number of private English as a second language (ESL) schools in the city as well as several non-degree granting educational establishments like Sprott Shaw Community College, Academy of Learning and Q College.

As you might expect, at the largest employers – like the school districts and the post-secondary institutions – there is a great diversity of jobs available. An added plus that I am aware of since I work for the University of Victoria is its wide range of well-paying jobs that are available to students and are often amenable to short shifts and flexible timing that fit with class schedules. Something I haven’t mentioned but is the case at all the large employers that I’ve highlighted so far is that there are two categories of job openings – those that are available to the general public and those that are restricted to those currently working for the employer. Again, in this respect the educational employers can be advantageous since they offer fairly easy entry into their workforce for those with few skills (like students) that then allow an employee to apply for ‘internal applicants only’ postings.

The educational sector is overall a good place for those with limited skills/newcomers to employment to look for work. Most of the large, public organizations within the educational sector employ almost exclusively unionized staff so wages are generally good although some entry-level jobs – like those for clerical workers – are lower than those at some of the municipalities (like the Capital Regional District (CRD)). It is difficult to know what pay is like at the private educational institutions – like St. Michaels University School for example – since they are not required to publicize their salaries.

So, what kind of jobs are available right now in the educational sector? At the University of Victoria there are relatively few postings – classes have just ended and things are winding down a bit for the summer which sees far fewer students on campus. Still there are secretarial positions, a supervisory position within the library and several professional positions ranging from providing “integrated services and oversight to maintain the optimal function of animal husbandry-related services, including electronic and mechanical equipment operating in the Animal Care Units housing mammals at the University of Victoria” to C-suite position that “provides leadership and executive level support of a confidential nature to the Vice-President in the areas of strategic planning, communications, human resources, project and issue management, policy, contract management, and analytical and research support related to those issues under the purview of the Vice-President External Relations”. Similarly both Camosun College and Royal Roads are showing a reduced list of opportunities at this time of the year.

The school districts also have few opportunities at the moment with less than 10 jobs in Victoria (SD61) and Saanich (SD63) with absolutely no external job postings at the Sooke School District (SD62). In the private sector Glenlyon Norfolk has a single job (in fundraising) and St. Michaels University School has two teaching positions and one counseling job open. None of the independent business/vocational colleges have any postings online although two (Q College and Sprott Shaw) indicate that they are always open to receiving resumes from potential instructors.

This seasonal scarcity of jobs is not surprising but more global factors, like demographic shifts to smaller families and the increasing replacement/supplementation of face-to-face teaching with technology that allows education to be delivered remotely will likely lead to fewer jobs for educators in the long term. In British Columbia, particularly the lower mainland and Vancouver Island because of their high quality of life, immigration may help to counteract this decrease in children requiring education. Overall though the outlook for the future, as the Guide to the BC Economy indicates, is not particularly promising for job growth in the educational sector.

However, I feel that this sector, especially at places like the University of Victoria, is a very promising place for those at the beginning of their careers (or re-entering the workforce) to look for positions. In selected institutions within the educational sector, young people can get great experience and develop skills while earning a better-than-average wage and, if they’re savvy, creating a network of contacts that can serve them well into the future. Next week I’ll focus on a particular organization within the educational sector.

Here are links to jobs at various educational institutions in the Victoria area:

• University of Victoria
• Camosun College
• Royal Roads University
• Sprott Shaw College (it is not clear from this page where these job opportunities are located)
• Q College (apply using their contact us form)
• School District #61 (Victoria)
• School District #62 (Sooke) – see links in left-hand column of page (External postings)
• School District #63 (Saanich)
• St. Michaels University School
• Glenlyon Norfolk School

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Tags: Academy of Learning, Camosun College, educational sector, Glenlyon Norfolk School, GNS, Q College, Royal Roads University, School District 61, School District 62, School District 63, SMUS, Sprott Shaw Community College, St Michaels University School, teaching jobs, University of Victoria, UVic

Posted By on April 27, 2012

This week I am going to focus not on the largest (numerically) employer in the healthcare sector in Victoria (the Vancouver Island Health Authority with approximately 18,000 employees) but on a smaller organization – the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA). I had hoped to be able to give you some idea of how many people work for the PHSA in Victoria but the truth is I cannot seem to locate that information. Here is what I was able to find out:

• approximately 350 people work for the PHSA at the Vancouver Island Centre location of the BC Cancer Agency
• an unknown number of people (but I would estimate at least 100) work as paramedics and in other non-paramedic roles (dispatchers, administrative staff) for the BC Ambulance Service in Victoria
• a small number of people (probably less than twenty but that is just a guess) work for Health Shared Services BC which is located at the Gorge Road Hospital
• an even smaller number of people work for Forensic Psychiatric Services in an office on Nanaimo Street

As you might expect there is a great variety of jobs within the PHSA and in fact this week on the organization’s website there are two postings that reflect this diversity. One job opening is for a patient care aide who is responsible for performing “a variety of tasks such as measuring and recording vital signs, cleaning instruments, stocking treatment areas, escorting patients in and out of exam rooms, acting as chaperone, transporting patients, delivering and collecting items, and miscellaneous clerical duties such as ordering supplies and printing off electronic patient materials from a computer”. The other is for a medical oncologist (physician specializing in cancer) who “will participate exclusively in the treatment and support of Oncology patients, in the outpatient and hospital settings” and also “have the opportunities to participate in academic research, teaching, and evaluation of standards of care” (here’s a link to Victoria’s PHSA career listings).

In terms of the PHSA’s reputation and perception by the community in Victoria it is so overshadowed by the inevitable publicity that seems to accompany every announcement or action by the Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA) that my guess (which I freely admit is completely unsubstantiated or backed up by data) is that most people are unaware of its existence as a separate entity from VIHA. In the case of the PHSA’s biggest employee concentration in the city – the Vancouver Island Cancer Centre – this building’s physical proximity to the Royal Jubilee Hospital (in fact the buildings are actually connected by a subterranean corridor – something to keep in mind if you’re even needing to travel between the two buildings on foot in inclement weather) doubtless complicates perception.

A quick search using Google seems to indicate that the name of PHSA’s CEO, at this time Lynda Cranston, rarely appears in the news whereas that of VIHA CEO Howard Waldner is frequently present and often in a negative spotlight. A constant source of media coverage within healthcare is executive compensation and in this respect Waldner and Cranston seem to be running neck and neck. For 2009/2010 (the last year I can find information for) Cranston’s total compensation was $442,688 while Waldner’s was $442,201 for the year ended March 31, 2011 . Overall the PHSA seems to have a fair number of highly-paid employees with around 13% of their 15,000 employees earning more than $75,000 annually. However, it must be mentioned that 35% of this group are nurses and that high salaries for nurses usually mean that the individual has been working excessive (and probably incredibly stressful and damaging to one’s health) overtime because of staff shortages. The PHSA website lists both executive compensation and information on those making more than $75,000 annually for several years into the past.

Even at the lower end I believe that the PHSA pays adequately. Wages for healthcare specific occupation seem about the same as at other organizations (like VIHA). For example a patient care aide at the BC Cancer Agency and one working for VIHA make the same hourly wage ($21.94) and both job postings require that potential employees have completed “a recognized Nursing Assistant Program”. Clerical/administrative pay is perhaps slightly better with the PHSA versus both VIHA and government. For example an office assistant job with the Forensics Psychiatric Services pays $18.92 per hour whereas a similar sounding position with VIHA pays only $16.67-$18.39 per hour and the wage is $18.72/hour for a job with the provincial government that requires a higher level of education and experience than that mentioned in the PHSA job description. Another positive aspect of the PHSA jobs that may appeal to those of you that don’t perform well when formally tested is that none of the clerical jobs I saw listed asked for a certain keyboarding speed threshold.

As I mentioned earlier there is a great variety of jobs available within the PHSA and, although this is just my opinion, a real opportunity to contribute to the improvement of healthcare and its delivery to the public through your employment with them. For example the mission of the PHSA is “managing the quality, coordination, accessibility and cost of selected province-wide health care programs and services”. This is accomplished through “specialty health care agencies that have a mandate to deliver high quality, specialized patient care for British Columbians” as well as the innovative services – like Health Shared Services BC – that has been setup to find “opportunities for health authorities across the province to improve cost effectiveness and enhance service quality. By working collaboratively on common services, Health Shared Services BC ensures health authorities get the most value for every dollar spent”. I don’t know about you but I find these statements much more compelling than VIHA’s mission of “Serving and involving the people of the islands to maintain and improve health”.

The PHSA is managed by a 10-person executive team and has around 12,000 employees in the entire province and a budget of over $1 billion (compare this to VIHA with around 18,000 employees and a budget of $1.8 billion ). In addition, the PHSA has a 12-person board that has “a primary responsibility to foster the Authority’s short and long-term success consistent with the Board’s responsibility to the Government and the patients, employees, the medical staff, and the public the Authority serves”. Board members are compensated for their time and out of pocket expenses and information about the rate of this compensation is easily located on the website.

Getting involved with the PHSA in Victoria can be accomplished in a number of ways outside of working for them. The Vancouver Island Cancer Centre has a very active volunteer program with more than half as many volunteers (200) as there are employees at the Centre . The Deeley Research Centre (the name of the research lab within the centre) offers ‘introduction to clinical oncology’ lectures  and also has a very exciting highschool internship if you’re a young person looking for a career in cancer research.

Next week I’ll give an introduction to the educational sector – Victoria’s third largest employer.

Category: Resources for Job Seekers, Welcome | No Comments »
Tags: BC Ambulance Service, BC Cancer Agency, BCAS, Deeley Research Centre, executive compensation, Health Shared Services BC, highschool internship program at Deeley Research Centre, HSSBC, introductions to clinical oncology, PHSA, Provincial Health Services Authority, Vancouver Island Centre, volunteering at the Vancouver Island Centre

Posted By on April 21, 2012

The Capital Regional District (CRD) lists the Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA) as the second largest employer (numerically) in the Victoria area but there is more to healthcare in Victoria than VIHA (although they do make up the lion’s share of the employees in this sector with approximately 10,000 people working for them). For example there is the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA) which includes 350 staff at the BC Cancer Agency Vancouver Island Centre (adjacent to Royal Jubilee Hospital), the paramedics of the BC Ambulance Service and other miscellaneous agencies and services.

There are also the employees that work on the frontlines of the 15 Lifelabs locations within the area in roles as varied as phlebotomist (drawing blood samples from patients) and receptionists. Behind these frontline staff are the laboratory workers – ranging from those with college diplomas to those with post-graduate or even doctoral credentials – that actually carry out the testing and assessment of the specimens collected from the patients.

We must also add to the healthcare number the 530 physicians registered as working in Victoria – ranging from family physicians to cardiologists and oncologists – and their associated staff – medical office assistants, in some cases nurses and in some practises nurse practitioners. Finally there are also a lot of other occupations involved with healthcare – dentists, dental hygienists, pharmacists and sonographers to name just a few – with significant numbers of each in private and public employment within Victoria and the surrounding area. I maintain then that it is possible (maybe even likely) that the healthcare sector is nipping at the heels of government in terms of the number of people employed in the region.

Like the government sector the healthcare sector has a wide range of jobs although I believe that there are not as many at the ‘bottom end’ or entry level – requiring little training beyond a highschool diploma – as there are in government. This is especially the case since VIHA privatized both the cleaning and the food services at all their facilities so these jobs, that were typically a way to get your foot in the door with the unions in place in healthcare, (Hospital Employees Union – HEU, BCNU – British Columbia Nurse’s Union) are no longer available.

Salaries in the lower end positions – for example clerical workers – seem to me to be about the same as those at the university and in the provincial government but significantly below those in municipal government (for example at the CRD or the District of Saanich). And these entry level jobs are in short supply – of the 206 jobs on the VIHA website the day I checked (April 19, 2012) only 13 (6.3%) were for clerical workers. Each of these positions required keyboarding skill of at least 40 wpm (and most required 50 wpm or above), medical terminology and most required two years of experience in a healthcare office setting and/or specialized training (such as the 335-hour Unit Clerk course offered by Camosun College).

If you have even a passing acquaintance with the state of healthcare in Canada in general and British Columbia in particular it won’t surprise you to hear that most of the job openings at VIHA the day I looked (82/206) are for nurses. There is a constant demand for nurses but this occupation requires a large commitment in terms of both time and money in acquiring the education. Only 3 of these 82 openings are for Licensed Practical Nurses which requires a lower commitment for students.

On a more positive note it doesn’t seem like the offshoring of healthcare work – specifically medical transcription – is happening in Canada to the same degree, if at all, as it is occurring south of the border. This means there is still work for medical transcriptionists both within VIHA and the PHSA and privately for individual physicians/group practises.

Bottom line is that there are very few jobs available in healthcare that you can obtain with a highschool diploma and limited experience. On the plus side however is that healthcare, especially in Victoria with its high proportion of older residents, is definitely a sector with lower than average unemployment rate and great prospects for those who are willing and able to devote the time and money to obtaining further education. As technology – especially mobile and tablet technology – progresses there are vast implications for healthcare in everything from allowing patient’s to track their own symptoms and lab results to the spread of electronic health records. Although some of these changes may decrease the need for workers my guess is that they will do the opposite and that with the explosion of data will come a commensurate increase in demand for people to work with it.

Perhaps most important for many people is that employment in the healthcare sector gives you the chance to make a significant positive difference in the lives of others. For example, the Deeley Research Centre at the BC Cancer Agency’s Victoria Centre is doing groundbreaking work in collaboration with other labs across the country and internationally. Cardiac care at the Royal Jubilee Hospital is very highly regarded and with the opening of the Island Medical Program at the University of Victoria in 2004 students who wish to pursue medical training no longer have to travel to the University of British Columbia on the lower mainland to do so.

The healthcare sector in Victoria is vibrant and rapidly changing and developing and for those with aptitude, education and energy it offers a variety of jobs that pay well and where the sky is the limit in terms of prospects, potential monetary rewards and progress throughout the layers of the organization.

Use this advanced search link to see jobs available at VIHA. Select Victoria in the drop down box marked Job Location to see postings open to the public at the Public Health Services Authority. Finally, see this link for LifeLabs jobs.

Next week I’ll focus in more closely on one of the organizations within the healthcare sector.

Category: Resources for Job Seekers, Welcome | No Comments »
Tags: BCNU, British Columbia Nurse's Union, HEU, Hospital Employees Union, Island Medical Program, LifeLabs, LPN, medical terminology, medical transcription, Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA), RN, unit clerk course, Vancouver Island Health Authority, VIHA

Posted By on April 14, 2012

As promised, this week I am going to focus in on one of the organizations that belongs to the sector I introduced you to last week. We’re going to take a closer look at the Capital Regional District (CRD) which I included in Victoria’s government sector (which is numerically – if you include the Department of Defence [DND] – Victoria’s biggest employer). The CRD’s own statistics say that in 2011 just over 1,000 people worked for the organization split about 70/30 in terms of full time/part time employment respectively.

The CRD is the “regional government for the 13 municipalities and three electoral areas that are located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island”. The CRD was formed in 1966 and thus is a fairly young organization in comparison to some of the municipalities, such as Oak Bay (incorporated as the ‘District of Oak Bay’ in 1906) and Victoria (incorporated as a city in 1862). Regional government organizations like the CRD are formed when “a number of local governments join together as partners so that they can benefit from economies of scale and eliminate duplication of effort on a region-wide perspective”.

Probably the most contentious issues that the CRD has had on its plate within the past decade are the sewage issue and the introduction of various smoking bylaws. A bit of background on the former – since 1894 (according to the Victoria Sewage Alliance website) Victoria has been dumping its sewage, without treating it any way other than, in the 1970s, introducing screening to remove any “solid objects larger than a thumbtack”, into the ocean off Clover and Macaulay Points. For at least 15 years a battle has been going on about whether or not this outfall is harming the aquatic environment and its inhabitants. and whether the CRD and the municipalities should build sewage treatment plants. If the answer to the latter question is yes, then the next argument will be over where said plants should be located (not surprisingly nobody wants them on their territory!) and how the massive projected cost should be met.

The second issue – smoking bylaws – is pretty innocuous in comparison although the odd dispute has come up regarding allowing smoking for residents of extended care facilities. In 2007 the CRD imposed a smoking ban on outdoor patios – basically all drinking and dining establishments are now completely non-smoking in the Capital Regional District and I must admit as a non-smoker who used to avoid bars because of the eye-stinging and stinky atmosphere within I love this ruling. I see the latest is that the CRD in March is being urged by some councillors to consider a smoking ban in playgrounds.

It is my impression, and I could be wrong, that the CRD generally has a pretty low profile in the eyes of most Victorians. I don’t think this is an accurate reflection of its level of activity and involvement with the municipalities and electoral areas within its boundaries. A quick Google search reveals many programs and initiatives that the CRD is part of including a pedestrian and cycling master plan and the Happiness Index Partnership – and these are just two of a diverse range of projects and activities.

As an employer I think the CRD probably pays well above average. Certainly I am always impressed by the wages that they offer in the job postings I review and put up on the fresh sheet. They frequently have jobs that would be excellent for students that also pay well – for example there is currently a Planning Research Assistant position open that pays $26.21 per hour which compares very favourably to a co-op job with the Provincial Government for a ‘Level 2 Co-op’ position which pays a maximum of $22.34 per hour.

The CRD is governed by a board that, not surprisingly, is chaired by and comprised of councillors, mayors and other elected representatives from the 13 municipalities and 3 electoral districts that fall within the CRD’s boundaries. You can learn more about how the CRD is organized by investigating its org chart and the long, long list of special committees and commissions.

If you’d like to learn more about the CRD in an informal way consider attending one of the monthly Resilient Region breakfasts which the CRD sponsors. As well as a free nosh you’ll get the chance to meet at least one CRD staffer (currently Sarah Webb is organizing these meetups but that could change) and potentially many more as there are typically several CRD employees in attendance at these meetings.

Next week I’ll give an introduction to the healthcare sector – Victoria’s second largest employer.

Category: Resources for Job Seekers, Welcome | No Comments »
Tags: capital regional district, CRD, CRD governance, CRD organization, Resilient Region breakfast, sewage treatment, smoking bans

Posted By on April 6, 2012

Special note – if I convinced you with my post on Peter Bregman’s book ’18 minutes’ that it’s worth a read make sure and take advantage of this great offer to buy the Kindle edition for $2.99 until April 9, 2012.

For this week and the following nine weeks I’m going to do a series of posts on the five top Victoria employment sectors by the numbers (that is those that employ the most people). On the ‘odd’ weeks – starting today Friday, April 6, 2012, I’ll tell you a bit about the sector and the companies and/or organizations contained within it. I’ll detail a bit about the types of jobs available – from those at the entry level to those in the C-suite – within the sector and how these jobs are distributed. I’ll talk a bit about wages and working conditions and whether the sector is seen as one that is growing or shrinking.

On the ‘even’ weeks – so starting next Friday, April 13, 2012, I’ll profile a particular employer within the sector featured in the preceding week. I’ll dig a little deeper and look at the recent history (say the last ten years) of the organization/company as well as its reputation on the Victoria stage and involvement with the community. I’ll also, in these more indepth posts, give you links to further resources where you can learn more about the organization’s executive team and its recruitment activities.

According to the Capital Regional District the five biggest employers in Victoria for 2011 were:

• Government (12,000 provincially; 7,300 federally including the Department of Defence; 3,400 municipal)
• Healthcare (10,000 working for the Vancouver Island Health Authority – VIHA)
• Education (4,900 University of Victoria; 1,100 Camosun College, 420 Royal Roads University; 4,800 3 K-12 school districts)
• Finance/Service/Retail/Hospitality (2,300 Thrifty Foods; 550 Commissionaires; 520 Empress Hotel; 511 Coast Capital Savings)
• Transportation (1,300 BC Ferries; 879 BC Transit)

Government

The concentration of government in Victoria is not surprising since it is the province’s capital although not, as is the case with many capitals, the province’s most populous city. Victoria’s location on the ocean and proximity to the United States also makes it a natural place for a large military presence. Finally, the fact that more than 100 years after the founding of most of the city’s municipalities they still exist separately rather than having amalgamated – which is always being brought up in the media and in various social forums – means that the number of employees at the local government level is perhaps higher than it would be in other ‘single municipality’ cities with a similar population.

As you might expect the kinds of jobs available in these three levels of government – municipal/regional, provincial and federal/defence vary greatly. For example, at the lower end of the scale there are jobs for truck drivers with the Department of National Defence (DND) that pay $19.64 per hour and facility cashiers (working at a local recreation centre) make $22.06 per hour working for the Capital Regional District (which is the “regional government for the 13 municipalities and three electoral areas that are located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island”). At the other end of the continuum there are jobs for physicians and lawyers with both the provincial and federal governments that pay slightly over $100,000 annually and selected opportunities – for example a physician’s job as a consultant in the Ministry of Health’s Audit and Investigation department – that pay $161K a year.

Also, as you might expect, there is a great preponderance of administrative jobs ranging from entry-level clerk/typists and receptionists to more advanced secretarial positions that require specialized knowledge of the various government record keeping systems, experience in making travel arrangements, top notch computer skills and the ability to take minutes at meetings. And in the middle are a vast variety of jobs – interpreters, computer programmers, scientists, writers, editors, managers, chefs and more – requiring varying levels of skills and education and wages. As an aside – information of this kind is available from an unexpected source – LinkedIn (to access this information search for a company and then look for a link off to the right that says “check out insightful statistics about …”).

According to the government of British Columbia’s 2008 report in the 1990s BC’s government did not follow the actions of other provinces and the size of the provincial public sector workforce continued to grow. In the mid 1990s though this changed and since then “the number of jobs in the provincial government has not grown as fast as the population”. Here’s more on what happened:

“Employment in public administration & defence increased just 15% between 1990 and 2008, less than a third as much as job growth in the economy (+48%) during this period. The total number of jobs in local government increased 26%, while employment in federal government offices located in BC increased 17% from 1990. The number of jobs in the provincial government declined slightly (-2%) during this period.”

Source: Guide to the BC Economy – Major Industries – Public Administration

Although many of the characteristics of jobs in this sector are desirable – wages are relatively high, unemployment is low and seven out of ten workers in the sector are unionized – the future outlook is fairly neutral. Looking forward to 2017 the prediction is that “employment in the industry is not expected to increase as much as in the rest of the economy, and the industry’s share of total employment is forecast to decline slightly.”

An interesting point that the Guide to the BC Economy report mentions is that although most people think of the government/defence sector – whether federal, provincial or municipal – as a behemoth filled with faceless, robot-like civil servants working in large groups 56% work in offices with less than 100 coworkers.

Bottom line is that if you’re looking for a fairly well-paid job with good working conditions, room for advancement and a variety of jobs the government/defence sector could be a good choice. If however you’re looking for a sector that’s poised for higher than average growth, where demand is brisk and increasing and skilled employees stand to earn big rewards – both monetarily and in terms of advancement and opportunities for further development – you might want to look elsewhere.

Here’s where you can find out more about jobs in this sector:

• Jobs in the Department of Defence (DND)
• Federal Government jobs – maybe some overlap with DND jobs
• Provincial Government jobs
• City of Victoria jobs
• District of Saanich jobs
• Township of Esquimalt jobs
• Oak Bay jobs
• Capital Regional District jobs

Category: Resources for Job Seekers | No Comments »
Tags: Capital Regional District (CRD), City of Victoria, department of defence, District of Saanich, DND, federal government, government, municipal government, Oak Bay Municipality, provincial government, Township of Esquimalt

Posted By on March 30, 2012

Every once and a while, totally serendipitously, something – a book, a movie, an overheard conversation, a piece of music or an experience that seemed inconsequential at the time – comes along and creates major change in your life. I believe that Peter Bregman’s book ‘18 Minutes’ could be, for many people, one of these ‘epiphany prompting items’.

It’s not a long book – 261 pages including the index – but it’s chock full of wise advice rendered in a style that is engaging, funny, self-deprecating and easy to both understand and absorb. Most importantly, as Bregman himself has said in almost every podcast I’ve listened to that he’s featured in, he doesn’t pontificate from on-high or present himself as some kind of guru who’s come down to slum with us mere, disorganized mortals and dispense gems of wisdom. Rather he uses numerous examples from his own life – and not just his business life but his everyday existence with his spouse and children – to show how we slip up and how some simple strategies can help us find our ‘focus, master distraction and get the right things done’ (emphasis added).

Bregman makes some very bold assertions in the book which upon reflection make perfect sense. One of my favourites is that time management systems and their accompanying documentation (whether that be books or worksheets or websites) “start too late and finish too early” and are underpinned by a false premise namely that it is possible to get EVERYTHING done. He maintains, and I agree, that when we try to implement these types of time management systems we may in fact be efficient, busy and making progress but that inevitably the “wrong things will fall through the cracks”. By this he means that we may get lots accomplished and even be making strides toward our goals but often this is at the cost of what is really important not just to our bottom line but to the ‘accounting’ that we do with ourselves when we look in the mirror or during periods of introspection.

Bregman suggests a new form of ‘to-do list’ and you can get a copy of the template for it from his site by supplying your email address (I have no indication that he is anything other than honourable and since signing up myself have received zero in the way of spammy messages). Here are some podcasts and video that will help you get some idea about Bregman’s ideas:

• Peter Bregman – A New Approach to Time Management (podcast, running time: 21 minutes)
• Peter Bregman – 18 minutes to change your life (podcast, running time: 20.5 minutes)
• Accidental Creative: Peter Bregman (podcast, running time: 18 minutes)
• TEDx Creative Coast – Peter Bregman, The Work Buffet (video, running time: 23 minutes)
• TEDx Flint – Peter Bregman – Living with your hands off your ears (video, running time: 17 minutes)

You can also find links to articles he’s written for a variety of prestigious publications on his blog. I suggest you check out “18 minutes” – I think you’ll find it’s a very good investment of your time. I’m going to start implementing many of Bregman’s strategies myself over the next few weeks and months with the intention of being completely on board with his system by my birthday in July (by which time I will most likely be in Uppsala, Sweden – or possibly Stockholm).

Category: Resources for Job Seekers | No Comments »
Tags: 18 minutes, 6-box to-do list, getting the right things done, Peter Bregman, time management

Posted By on March 24, 2012

It is all too easy, and believe me I speak from personal experience, to sit in front of (or is it behind?) your computer all day, surf Internet job boards, fill out a few online applications for employment and convince yourself that you’re actually ‘looking for work’ and ‘trying to find a job’. But, if we’re honest with ourselves we know that we could in fact be doing much, much more and spending our time far more productively when searching for a new position in these tough times.

This ‘passive’ approach to the job search is linked, I think, with an attitude (which we need to dispense with immediately) that the old rules of the workplace, career and job security still apply and that if we simply play by these tried-and-true regulations we’re sure to land a peachy position with a fat paycheque and not-too-onerous duties. But you and I both know this is b*llshit!

As Seth Godin says frequently, what had previously seemed safe – working for a decades (or century or more) old company, keeping your head down and attempting to blend in and performing at a level that is ‘good enough’ but far from exceptional – is now the risky approach because you’re so much like everyone else. When it comes time for a firm to start cutting staff you want to stand-out rather than be one of the faceless masses ripe for pink-slipping.

This translates over into job hunting as well. In fact, as this article from the Harvard Business Review (Find a Job Using Disruptive Innovation) suggests maybe it shouldn’t be called job hunting or job searching at all but rather job creating. Today, the prize seems increasingly to be going to those who have the guts, the skills and the insight to perceive (and take advantage of) the intersection between their particular talents and what the ‘market’ needs at this particular moment. I think you could certainly do worse than to follow the advice in the disruptive innovation article.

Susan Lewis took an unorthodox approach and instead of looking for a company to hire her set out to hire a boss for herself. She ended up with a job that was a perfect fit not to mention a ton of publicity. Chris Guillebeau’s recent blog post asks ‘Where is your security?’  further reinforcing Godin’s premise that safe is now risky and vice versa. Guillebeau’s solution is similar to that of the HBR article and he’s even offering a book – The $100 Startup – to show you how to do it.

But, you may protest, I’m not ready to take such drastic steps – I’m just looking for something to keep food in the cat’s bowl (and to not have to share it with her). Or maybe you have a job that’s far from a perfect fit but you’re pretty sure it’s a dumb idea to walk away from it in today’s economic climate. Then have a look over the website of Allan Bacon whose ‘Life Experiments’ gave him new perspective on not only his work environment but how he could get more fulfilment out of his everyday experiences.

Category: Resources for Job Seekers | No Comments »
Tags: 'safe is the new risky', Chris Guillebeau, disruptive innovation, job creation, job search, life experiments, Seth Godin, unorthodox job search techniques