St Stephen’s Community House

My boyfriend tried this place out a couple of years ago. He had an interview with a Job Counselor, told her what area’s of work he was interested in, and got added to a list-​serve where he automatically received job ad’s directly to his e-​mail account. While he did receive quite a few e-​mails/​job leads, none of them were applicable to his field of interest and he ended up getting a job off craigslist or something.
After obtaining my Human Resources Management Diploma and having absolutely NO luck scoring interviews in my field, I turned to St. Stephen’s Employment Centre as a final act of desperation. I assumed the same process would take place; have an interview with a Counselor and receive e-​mails whenever a job ad got posted. Well apparently that was only part of a «Student Summer» thing they did and I would have to be fully taken on as a «Client» and attend weekly meetings with my Employment Counselor.
During my first and only meeting with my «Counselor», she told me it would realistically take about 4 – 5 months for her to find me a job. She kept suggesting looking into Temp Agencies (which I already had) and fixing up my resume which didn’t really need to be fixed… I went to school for HR and took courses solely based on creating attractive resumes.
After our pointless meeting was over, I was given an «access card» which gave me access to their computers, printers and fax machines. I was booked in for another appointment in 2 weeks and told to «fix up» my resume in the meantime.
A few days later, I randomly ended up getting a position at the LCBO for the Xmas season and hoped it would lead into a permanent position. I contacted my Counselor about this and she wished me good luck on the position and to get in contact with her if I didn’t get the position going into January.
Well it turns out I didn’t get a position leading into January and was back at Square 1. My hesitance about this agency even getting me a job at all didn’t stop me from trying to contact my Counselor again, because I figured it couldn’t hurt to have someone keeping an eye open for me. After 3 e-​mails and 3 phone messages begging this woman to please at least acknowledge me and let me know if she’d be willing to take me back on as a client and no response, I gave up. I can’t believe she completely avoided contact with me and refused to get back to my messages. Even the Receptionist was rude to me and very un-​accommodating when I tried to get answers as to what was going on. I understand if you’ve got too many clients, or whatever? Just give me some sort of closure?
All in all– This is NOT a place that will find you a job. It’s an Employment «Resource» Centre, so basically if you are poor and don’t have internet access or a printer, maybe you’d get some use out of this establishment.
I was hoping that this agency had networking links and businesses in the community they would have been partners or good relationships with with– but nothing. I’m sure they’ve had success before and will continue to have some success matching individuals to jobs in their field– I’m just not willing to wait 4 – 5 months to find out if I’ll get lucky.