Our newsletter is now available on our website

To view this months newsletter click on the newsletter tab above or click on the following link

http://iamarvin.ca/?page_id=1507

Keeping a verifiable record of your job search activities is required by both Second Career and EI, so it is important to keep track of your job hunting efforts. Below is some of the information that you should record for this purpose.

• Type of position applied for
• Date of contact
• Type of contact
  • Phone
  • Fax
  • Email
  • Internet
  • In Person

We have forms here at the Centre to help you with this and don’t forget that we have many workshops  available here at your Action Centre such as.

• Interview Skills
• Mock Interviews
• Targeting Employers
• Employer Testing

Many of your friends and former co-workers have opted to retrain and /or upgrade their education. They took several different paths from getting certified on a forklift to full college courses and everything in between. We are now seeing our first group of those who opted to go the  full college program route start to graduate. The types of course that they chose included.

• Accounting
• Paralegal
• Special Effects Make up
• Medical Office Assistant
• Plus many others

We would like to offer a hearty congratulations to all those who have completed their upgrading  and educational studies as well as offering best wishes and encouragement to those whose studies are ongoing.
Go to our  Success Stories page for some examples

As well as offering existing workshops,we have been busy lately developing new workshops with a view to assisting with your return to work strategies.All our courses are offered at the Centre  and are free of charge to former ArvinMeritor , Servisair and British Airways employees If you are interested in taking  any of the workshops offered at your Action Centre please contact us                     (416) 255-2828      info@iamarvin.ca

Targeting Employers new!

In this workshop facilitated by Stephanie McKenzie you will be given the tools that you need to target employers that you are interested in. This course consists of two three hour sessions held over two days. Also available are individual sessions with Stephanie (While not required we prefer that you first attend the group sessions) Among the topics covered in the group sessions are:

• Resume review
• Points to consider in targeting employers
• Getting organized
• Planning your week
• Common web sites
• What works
• Changing your approach

The following three workshops will be facilitated by the Toronto District School Board (TDSB)

Pre-Employment Testing new!

It is common for employers to test potential employees in Math,Reading and Problem solving etc. This seminar explores strategies for dealing with employer testing.

Interview Skills

Having good interviewing skills will help you to land that job you want. You need to stand out amongst all of the other interview candidates and present yourself as a confident and capable prospective employee. We would like to help you in honing your interview skills. We plan to have a workshop to provide you with information on how to have a successful interview.

Mock Interviews

This is a great tool for preparing yourself for a job interview. You will be interviewed by a professional job interviewer. A mock interview is not only good practice but will also help identify areas needing improvement.

Other Available Workshops

• Basic Computer Skills
• Introduction to Microsoft Word 2007
• Introduction to the Internet
  

We will be making some changes in terms of service expansion and service provision at the ArvinMeritor/IAM Action Centre.

We have spent a lot of time over the last year and a half working with clients on attaining their training goals, and we will continue to do so. Isabel Fonseca, Employment Advisor from Toronto District School Board, Mississauga Community Connections will continue to work with clients interested in upgrading their skills or changing career.

Rahim Nensi, Assessor, VPI Inc. will continue to see clients that have completed their research and are ready to submit their training applications to the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities.

We will be expanding our services to include a more comprehensive Job Readiness and Employer Targeting Program which will include an Employer Outreach Program.

We will be launching the Employer Outreach program in the New Year. The goal of this program will be to target potential employers and market the skills of the former ArvinMeritor and Servisair employees. We are currently in the process of getting permission from individuals to send out resumes to prospective employers on their behalf.

In conjunction with this new Employer Outreach program we will be making some changes to our service provision. Starting immediately our counselor, Stephanie MacKenzie will be switching her role from Training Counselor to Employer Targeting Counselor. In this role she will be working with clients individually as well as in groups as part of our Job Readiness Program to ensure clients learn how to target employers, how to get organized, how to plan their job search activities, etc.

Marsha Nelson-Bromfield, Intake & Assessment, Community MicroSkills Development Centre will continue to see clients to help them with their resume development, targeting resumes for specific employers and jobs and cover letter development.

We will also be providing some additional workshops to support both clients working toward a training goal and clients working towards job readiness and job search goals.

• Introduction to Computers
• Introduction to Word
• Introduction to the Internet
• Interview Skills Workshop
• Mock Interviews
• Targeting Employers – NEW
• Employer Testing (in development) – NEW

The new rules for Second Career eligibility are in. Your qualification for Second Career is now based on a points system. There are 7 areas each awarded 0 -3 points for a possible total of 21. You must score a minimum of 16 points to be eligible.

To find out how this affects your application for SC benefits drop by the Centre and we will gladly go over the new guidelines with you in detail

This is our most challenging project yet and we want you to take advantage of the benefits it will have to offer. The peer helpers will be contacting you to see if you are interested in participating in our Employer Outreach Program. The objective of this program is to research and contact employers that are hiring and send them a marketing package with resumes from our workers in transition that have been utilizing the action centre. We will be working hard to promote the skills you have to offer them and opening opportunities for interviews and jobs.

What do you need to do to participate?

• Inform the action centre if you are interested in participating
• Make sure we have the most up to date copy of your resume
• Tell us what type of job(s) you are looking for
• Sign the updated Release of Information of Consent Form

If you haven’t been contacted by one of our peer helpers give us a call at the action centre

Do you need a free word processor that is fully compatible with Microsoft Word?

Most employers require all resumes and cover letters to be in Microsoft Word format unfortunately most unemployed workers can’t afford the cost of buying MS Office. Well here is a free option that allows you to create, edit, and save in MS Word format. Simply go to save as and save your document as Microsoft word.

Click here to  download and install Open Office

Welcome

We wish to extend a warm welcome to our newest members from Servisair. Your Action Centre is staffed by laid off workers (Peer Helpers) who have been trained to assist you with your needs. Our newest Peer Helper is Angela Ashby of Servisair. In addition we have two Career Councilors on staff as well as a professional ResumeWriter. And of course our capable Coordinator  Joanne Polubiec. All the services offered here at your Action Centre are  free of charge to you. Several of your former co-workers are already using the services offered here and we would love to see many more of you. For a brief description of what we offer click here

If you would like more information please feel free to contact us

In an earlier post we asked you if there were any other workshops that you would like us to host and boy did you respond. Due to demand we have fully booked 3 sessions of our Introduction to MS Word 2007 Workshop to be held on October, 22, 28, and 29th and are currently accepting participants for a fourth session.

But that is just a start, we are  currently filling spots for several other workshops including the following.

• Introduction to the Internet
• Basic Computer Training
• Academic Preparedness
• Introduction to MS Word 2007
• Interview Skills/Mock Interview

If you are interested in taking part in one of these workshops or would like more information contact us here at your Action Centre