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Originally Posted by Snark
I'm frequently I'm asked advice on careers by young people or their parents. My answer is always the same:
"Get good at something that people will pay you well to do. How you get that training to be good is optional, but be damn sure that you pick something that someone will pay you well to perform. That is not optional"
The last half of that statement is generally not executed well enough in Ontario. Too many mismatches between the training that too many young people are taking and what the job market (especially local) is asking for. If, for example, one grew up in London and wanted to stay there after school for a career it would be best to align with professions better suited for the local market. I will admit though that what that is for the London market has recently been a moving target, with the economic foundations of most medium sized cities in North America undergoing fundamental shifts in the past 10 years.
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To be honest, it's pretty difficult to gauge which careers are going to be viable and well-paying in the long term. You've always got information lag and then the good ol' BS factor (ie, trades and professional organizations who go around shilling for themselves in High Schools across the province), both of which work against you in the quest to make a fully informed decision.
Your advice is good though. A lot of young, impressionable people could really benefit from a tough line like that. Just out of curiosity, what industry are you in?
Quote:
Originally Posted by manny_santos
That is powerful stuff. You should write a letter to the editor in the Free Press on this topic sometime. If people could see that Western is failing some students and not being the best it could be within London with the lack of co-op opportunities, changes might happen, you never know. Unfortunately from when I remember the university president Amit Chakma being interviewed on TVO shortly after he took over, Steve Paikin asked him a pointed question about the university's less than stellar relationship with London, and Chakma didn't seem to really care.
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I've thought about writing a letter to the University, because the whole co-op/job search ordeal made me exceedingly cross for the longest time. Maybe I'll get around to writing a letter to the Free Press eventually. My big problem nowadays is the perennial time shortage.
Frankly it doesn't surprise me that Chakma didn't and likely still doesn't care. As the leader of the Order of the Ivory Tower, he probably thinks of himself as being part of something far grander and more important than the little peasants who inhabit the various townhouse complexes and detached bungalows that make up the City of London. But I think the point of failure occurs much lower on the pyramid. It starts with people in career services who are not doing their job and marketing Western grads like Laurier et. al. does with theirs. You end up having to market yourself, which is exceedingly difficult, as any self-employed professional will tell you. So it's understandable that people go where the volume is. It's a pity, because there's some excellent folks in the MOS department who would really like to see Western grads thrive in London.
Quote:
Originally Posted by manny_santos
Is your field accounting? I'm aware of a small number of people from my graduating class who found CA/CMA/CGA jobs in London, but the majority found them in Toronto and one ended up on Wall Street. One person from my graduating class who did get a job in London left for Toronto in less than three years.
I've been looking at CPA Ontario job boards from time to time and I'd say 80-90% of the positions advertised are in the GTA, with the rest spread around Southern Ontario including Ottawa, London, and K-W - maybe once every three months you'll see one in Northern Ontario. It sucks since the GTA only makes up 45% of Ontario's population.
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Yes, good guess! Public accounting. It's a tough gig, especially in Toronto. The competition here is just deadly, the hours are brutal (65+ a week... I have very little sympathy for 45-hour millenials who complain about their jobs being "demanding" and a lot of respect for investment bankers working 80 hours a week) but you're in it for the experience.
I think the big issue, insofar as the concentration of accounting jobs goes, is that Toronto has agglomeration economies on its side and London doesn't. There is simply a larger volume of more diversified work for people to do here thanks to the sheer number of companies that congregate around each other. Even though less than half of all people in Ontario live around Toronto, it's going to have far more than half the accounting jobs. The reason why your classmate probably left London is likely because he hit a glass ceiling and wanted to move on to bigger things. Personally, I'd like to take his spot- I get almost teary-eyed and nostalgic when I see the 401 onramp signs proudly labeled "WEST- LONDON". I really do miss the place, especially now that I'm living in a grungy area of an overcrowded city (although at least it's only a 5-minute walk to the GO Train, which is nice, even if I do have a pretty high chance of being mugged by High School truants).
If you want some job search tips, you can PM me and I can share some pointers. There's never a shortage of people lining up to bang their heads against the wall in this profession, and a lot of partners/managers view students as more of a burden than an asset, so you really have to go above and beyond.
EDIT: I apologize for the wall of text!
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