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Dec 09
Love4

Ability Edge in the Canadian HR Reporter!

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We are pleased to share the following article, originally published in the Canadian HR Reporter on November 29, 2010, which features host employer Kaye Leslie at Scotiabank and former Ability Edge intern, Elizabeth Novak.

Attitude top barrier to employment for the blind

Visual disabilities to double in 25 years, firms need to do more to accommodate

By Shannon Klie

Attitude is the number one barrier to employment for people with a visual disability, according to Kaye Leslie, manager of workforce diversity at Scotiabank in Toronto, who herself has only two per cent of her vision because of juvenile macular degeneration.

“It’s perceived to be the most difficult disability to accommodate,” said Leslie, who has worked at Scotiabank for six years.

People are afraid of blindness in a way they aren’t afraid of other disabilities, she said.

Read More

Dec 01
Love3

Ability Edge JOINs in at the ACTION Makes It Happen 2010 Employer Conference

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By guest contributor, Rizwan Abdul, Client Relations & Human Resources Manager at Career Edge Organization

The 2010 JOIN 7th Annual Conference was held on November 29 in Downtown Toronto. The theme for this year’s conference was “ACTION Makes It Happen” The annually held Fall conference organized by JOIN is the employer-to-employer event that taps into the vast economic potential of people with disabilities. This conference brings corporate, government, disability-owned businesses and the JOIN BLN (Business Leadership Network) affiliates together to create workplaces and marketplaces where people with disabilities are fully included as professionals, customers and entrepreneurs.

The major sponsors of this year’s conference were Scotiabank, Province of Ontario and CIBC. Interestingly, all three organizations hire actively from the Ability Edge program for recent graduates with disabilities. Career Edge Organization participated in the conference as a Business Leadership Network member of JOIN and was represented by Donna Smith, Vice President and Rizwan Abdul, Client Relations and Human Resources Manager.

Read More

Nov 19
Love3

Conan O’Brien you’re not alone; according to the Montreal Gazette “aspiring younger staff have nowhere to go”

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comments_blogThe following article is from the Montreal Gazette –

read it and let us know your thoughts!

“Older workers who won’t retire hurt successors’ careers; Aspiring younger staff have nowhere to go”

By Michelle Nichols,  Montreal Gazette, Mon Nov 15 2010

U.S. late-night television host Conan O’Brien was not alone when his career aspirations were crushed this year by an older colleague who refused to retire, experts say.

Read More

Nov 11
Love3

Should Remembrance Day be a statutory holiday? Lest we forget.

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NEW: Click here to take the poll!

blog button_tell us what you thinkScanning this morning’s to-do list, I see a long list of things to remember – remember to do this, remember to get that, remember to call someone, remember your appointments… and somewhere, buried in that long list is one small bullet point:

~ Remembrance Day, 11 AM ***

It’s there, lest I forget.

poppyRemembering the extraordinary sacrifices and tragedies that occurred in times of war is incredibly important to us here at Career Edge Organization, and not just as a Canadian not-for-profit that promotes diversity but as a genuinely diverse team with people who represent a wide range of cultures and ethnicities. Each of us here have a different understanding of what war means – what it has meant to us, our families and our ancestors.

At 11 AM we will be taking a few moments in silence to reflect upon these things and each of us, in our own way that is relevant to us, will pay our respects.

But there are those that feel this is not enough, and that in the busyness of our day, Remembrance Day will be nothing more than an afterthought, spliced into our to-do lists somewhere between points 6 and 7. Furthermore as WWII veterans age there is a growing concern that the memories will be lost with them and eventually forgotten (despite the best efforts of Mr. Spielberg and others).

In Canada, Ontario, Manitoba and Quebec are the only provinces that don’t observe Remembrance Day as a statutory holiday, although many organizations such as banks and government do take the day off.

Every year the same debate arises – this year, an Ontario Conservative MPP is introducing a bill to have Remembrance Day replace February’s 3 year-old “Family Day” as a stat holiday. The debate has even taken to Facebook and other forums.

Others argue that the holiday is best observed by children when they are at school and by adults when they are at work – putting people in environments where there is a formal structure around recognizing the holiday. Their concern is that without this people would spend the days at home watching day-time television and the issues won’t even be talked about or in some cases, even acknowledged.

There are definitely two considerable sides to this debate – what do you think?

Nov 03
Love3

Lose the Gen Y stereotypes! New survey shows Gen Y employees prefer traditional approach to work environment, pay and dressing for success

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In January 2008, French Canadian cartoonist Marc Beaudet’s now infamous sketch was published in Journal de Québec. The image, seen here, depicts the stereotypical millennial male with his trademark low-hanging jeans and characteristic “buttock cleavage” exposed.

Gen-Y-cartoon

The picture really does paint a thousand words. It’s congruent with everything we think we know about Gen Y:

1. Gen Y are lazy (too lazy, it seems, to pull their pants up)

2. Gen Y have no respect for traditional values, as seen by their highly casual and liberal attire

3. Gen Y are best suited to work in unstructured, untraditional environments

Would you be surprised to learn that a recent study (as seen here in the Toronto Star article, “What twentysomethings want from their jobs” ) found that Gen Y employees actually have “traditional” preferences when it comes to work environment, pay and dress code?

Surprised? Take our poll

The Gen Y survey of young job-seekers across Ontario yielded some enlightening results. For instance, Gen Y prefer a “formal office structure with cubicles for entry level employees” over open-concept offices.

And despite a growing trend towards social HR and social media recruiting, a whopping 80% of Gen Y are still looking to job-postings and corporate websites when deciding where they want to work.

Finally, despite “Millennial Mike’s” plumber-esque attire as depicted in the cartoon above, Gen Y said they prefer a “business casual” dress-code over the “just-rolled-out-of-bed’ t-shirt and jeans look at the office.

While amusing, it looks like Beaudet had this fascinating cohort pegged wrong, and he’s not alone. The online (and, for the matter, offline) world is flooded with millennial myths. It’s time employers started getting the real facts.

Click here to read the press release

Take the Poll!

Have something to say? Leave a comment and tell us what you think.

pollcode.com free polls
Are you surprised to learn that Gen Y prefer Business Casual dress code over Jeans?
 

Totally!

Not really

 
Oct 29
Love4

Understanding the “digital behaviour” of job seekers

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Help Wanted?

By guest contributor, Sydney Helland, Marketing & Communications Coordinator at Career Edge Organization

In the breakout session “Talent Generation and Candidate Nurturing” held last month at the Human Resources Networking Group (HRNG) 2010 Recruitment Innovation Summit, speaker Steven Woods (CTO, Eloqua) presented the trending indicating that the traditional, pre-digital recruitment model has no doubt been overthrown by a modern, post-digital model that hinges on the online, social behaviour of job seekers.

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Oct 22
Love4

Happy Birthday, Blog! The “CEO Blog” turns 1 today

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Exactly one year ago our little organization had a big launch for our blog with its inaugural post, An Open Door Policy.

Since October 2009 Career Edge Organization’s official organizational blog has brought over 8,000 readers economic and employment news, updates, discussion, research and profiles in over 75 individual posts!

We’ve had over 14,000 pageviews and continue to build a loyal community of returning readers, primarily in Canada.

At Career Edge Organization, we’ll be celebrating with some delicious cake and a big thank you to everyone on our team who has contributed content or ideas for the blog. Most importantly, we would like to thank you, our loyal readers who have helped make our transition to the web 2.0 world a wonderful success.

Happy Birthday Blog!

Oct 14
Love4

Download My Talent – Toronto Life Magazine profiles the city’s most innovative new talent

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tech

Everyone knows that Career Edge Organization works with both Canadian and international corporate giants like Bell, RBC, GE, and the list goes on.

But our interns – including recent grads, grads with disabilities and experienced newcomers – have found homes in small organizations as well, many of them entrepreneurial start-ups in the IT sector.

Some of our smaller, less ubiquitous hosts recently popped up in an issue of Toronto Life. In a fascinating article called “Download My App” by Katrina Onstad (with photography by Daniel Ehrenworth), the magazine profiles some of the cutting-edge, high-tech innovation that has been brewing in the Canadian city.

The companies profiled, such as Extreme Venture Partners and Five Mobile, are for the most part young, diverse, hip and forward-thinking enterprises with fun workplace cultures that attract some of the world’s brightest talent, keeping them motivated to do what they do best – create.

In a nutshell, the article describes “how a bunch of young tech entrepreneurs have turned Toronto into the next Silicon Valley.”

Toronto is known to be one of the most culturally diverse cities in the world – people have brought ideas and perspectives from all over the world. This is the perfect mentality for “the wired generation,” whose world is not defined by physical space, let alone geographical borders.

A less expensive (albeit colder) living option than Silicon Valley, with free healthcare and, as the article points out, “excellent bars,” Toronto has quickly become a hotbed of talent.

It’s no surprise to us that Career Edge Organization host employers Bluecat Networks and Polar Mobile, both profiled in the article, also see the value of partnering with us for talent. These entrepreneurs represent a generation that knows “the right thing to do” also makes good business sense, and so partnering with a not-for-profit to bring in top quality talent like youth or internationally qualified professionals who face barriers to work in the Canadian job market – well it’s kind of a no-brainer.

Kudos to all the great companies mentioned in the article, to Canada for being awesome, and to Toronto Life for putting together such a cool article – we highly recommend you pick up a copy!

Oct 08
Love4

Counting our blessings: Career Edge Organization gives thanks to employers, partners, interns & alumni

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Around this time of year, all of us here at Career Edge Organization can’t help but think of all we have to be thankful for. What was initially a small private-sector solution to a big social problem nearly fifteen years ago has since grown into a thriving organization that employs a team of nearly 20 dedicated staff and has launched thousands of careers.

In September we celebrated our 10,000 interns milestone . Now in October, we have surpassed that number beyond our expectations. Today, we consider our 10,000 former interns part of our extended family, and hundreds of our Alumni are still keeping in touch with Career Edge Organization telling us where they have landed since we launched their careers and how much they want to give back.

Among this growing network of Alumni are our dedicated Alumni Network Committee members who met as recently as the beginning of this month to begin planning programs and events for the greater network.

And of course, there are the employers whose continuing support through times good and bad have made these celebrations possible.

So, wherever this long weekend takes you, whether or not you eat turkey, all of us at Career Edge Organization would like to say thanks for being there and thanks for reading our blog!

Happy Friday and have a great weekend!

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