Canada’s economy loses when employers can’t find the right talent – the right technology can make sure they do

By Mark Patterson

Executive Director, Magnet

When employment opportunity goes unmet, the collective failure to capitalize comes with real and significant costs to Canada’s economy.

Those losing out might be students in search of summer work, or a first chance at launching a career after graduation. They might be small and medium-sized businesses looking for an infusion of skilled talent, but unable to connect with the right candidate. In some instances, the loss may be felt by an industry or government-backed support program that doesn’t get the uptake it deserves, leaving funds left unused or undistributed.

One way to enable and facilitate opportunity to the fullest extent possible is by building and utilizing a technological infrastructure that connects relevant stakeholders within a coordinated, collaborative, and interoperable network. This was the vision that inspired Outcome Campus Connect.

Created by Magnet in partnership with Orbis Communications (now Symplicity), and funded by the Government of Canada, the Outcome Campus Connect network links the job boards of more than 155 Canadian post-secondary institutions, forming a nationwide talent pool that represents more than one million students.

Connecting such a huge audience of job seekers on one network creates efficiencies for employers, allowing them to reach the entire group with just a single job posting. 

Network enables more efficient and equitable distribution of work opportunities for Canadian students

By dramatically reducing the administrative burdens of hiring, the Outcome Campus Connect network allows employers to more easily identify and attract diverse talent from different regions of the country. Employers are also able to spend more time and resources on campus, meeting with and creating connections with potential student hires. 

Employers aren’t alone in benefitting from increased access to opportunity through Outcome Campus Connect. The network also enables access to employment connections for students studying at remote institutions, or those attending colleges and universities that businesses haven’t traditionally targeted for recruitment. 

While students are the obvious beneficiaries from this enhanced access, institutions also gain when more of their students are able to find work-integrated learning opportunities, earn income at summer jobs, or explore potential careers.

Governments and industry associations are also key partners in the Outcome Campus Connect ecosystem. The network’s underlying technological infrastructure allows employer hiring efforts to be easily integrated with the application process for a range of funding or support programs, such as the federal Student Work Placement Program ( SWPP).  Beyond reducing the administrative burden on employers, this integration helps to drive increased awareness and uptake of support initiatives while diminishing or removing the need for program marketing efforts.

Outcome Campus Connect offers the capacity to significantly scale-up nationwide efforts to train Canada’s future workforce

Following the early uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time many student work experiences were threatened or cancelled because of public health measures, Magnet leveraged the Outcome Campus Connect network to dramatically scale up its role in facilitating work placements through the SWPP, connecting more than 20,000 students with employers for wage-subsidized positions. Many of these opportunities went to students from under-represented groups including women in STEM, Indigenous students, persons with disabilities, newcomers, and first-year students.

Besides facilitating opportunity at a time of critical need, this rapid expansion of program uptake demonstrated the Outcome Campus Connect network’s capacity to effectively administer and adjudicate a support program, delivering impressive results for the government and other stakeholders. 

The final element of the network’s performance is its ability to report rapid, accurate data to governments, industry associations, and other key program administrators. The technology powering Outcome Campus Connect offers a secure framework for the real-time sharing and aggregation of information measuring program impact and uptake. Instead of quarterly reporting that lacks timeliness or is difficult to decipher, Outcome Campus Connect facilitates easy, up-to-date information sharing between all participating delivery partners across the country.

In light of the economic implications, it is imperative that Canada do everything it can to facilitate employment opportunities as fully and broadly as possible, leveraging technology to bring relevant parties together in search of growth. The infrastructure supporting the Outcome Campus Connect network represents a vital way to facilitate increased opportunity for post-secondary students and the institutions they study at, for employers of all sizes across Canada, for governments of all levels, and for the partner organizations delivering public support programs.