300 employers due at Wednesday fair

Almost 300 employers and some 3,000 students and recent graduates of the area's four post-secondary institutions will meet to talk about careers and employment prospects at the 14th annual career fair on Wednesday.

The event, to be held at RIM Park in Waterloo, is the largest post-secondary career fair of its kind in Canada, says a news release issued Friday. It's co-sponsored by UW, the University of Guelph, Conestoga College and Wilfrid Laurier University.

"It's a hot job market out there," says Carol Ann Olheiser, UW employment co-ordinator for graduating students and alumni."Our employer registrations have increased by 20 per cent over last year's fair, which clearly attests to the quality of our students and alumni and the academic programs at the four local post-secondary institutions."

The fair runs from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday and is open to students and alumni from the four post-secondary institutions. All four institutions will offer shuttle bus service to the event.

Students and alumni are being promised the opportunity to meet with approximately 300 employers and gather vital information on careers. They will see displays and network with representatives of participating organizations, obtain career information, discuss employment requirements and opportunities, and promote their own skills. The fall "career fair" is complemented each year by a winter "job fair".

Many economic sectors will be represented at the event, including financial services, manufacturing, information technology, retail services, engineering, aerospace, telecommunications, health care, pharmaceuticals, food and hospitality services, law enforcement, community and social services, along with government agencies and departments. Among the participating employers are Canadian Pacific, Alberta Municipal Affairs and Housing, Bell World, Apotex Pharmachem, Redback Networks, RBC Financial Group, McCain Foods, Sears Canada, Manitoba Hydro, Molson, and Shell Canada.

Admission is free with a student or alumni card from any one of the four participating institutions.

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MTax has 161 grads in a decade

Celebrations were held in Toronto last week for one of the School of Accountancy’s signature programs, the professional Master of Taxation graduate program, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month. “Having opened its program doors in September 1997, the MTax program now boasts 161 graduates working in the tax field worldwide,” says Patty Mah of the accountancy school.

She recalls: “Spearheaded by Jim Barnett, the director of the program until 2006, the MTax program was originally developed to meet the demand for tax practitioners, and it has become recognized as a significant provider of high quality tax professionals. The program has evolved over the last 10 years to keep pace with the current market, but much of the core and mandate remain the same. The emphasis of the program continues to be that of developing the skills, both technical and otherwise, that today’s tax practitioners require.”

Says Barnett, who is now director of the school as a whole: “Our heartfelt thanks go out to our students, graduates, contributors, faculty and staff as the MTax program continues to grow and adapt to the ever-changing world of taxation.”

Celebrations were held Thursday — coinciding with the 90th anniversary of Canada’s first piece of income tax legislation, the Income War Tax Act — at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario headquarters in Toronto, where all MTax courses are taught.

Back in Waterloo, at the accountancy school’s headquarters in a crowded wing of the Humanities building, “Investing in Human Capital” was the theme of this year’s third annual Professional Futures Conference. More than 200 eager second-year students participated in the event, held during orientation week. The conference offered opportunities for students in the Accounting and Financial Management program and Math/CA program to develop professional skills and competencies as they face the co-op process for the first time.

Prizes were awarded to 38 students in eight teams: Accounting and Financial Monsters, Co-op Crusaders, 4Max, Team Synergy, MBA (Mind Blowing Accountants), Simply Accountants, CEO (Coveted Enterprising Organization), and the Big 5. The conference included team and individual activities, from enhancing a professional image and dining etiquette to simulated interviews and ethics workshops. The winners were given leadership training, lunch with UW president David Johnston, a seminar with Jean Chrétien at the Canadian Club in Toronto, or lunch with Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO of Research In Motion.

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Now it's fall, with winter looming

It's hard to believe in this still-new fall term, but job postings for winter term co-op jobs have begun. The first batch went up on JobMine over the weekend, with more to follow regularly over the weeks ahead. First cycle interviews, matching the bulk of students with the jobs they'll hold from January to April, are scheduled to run from October 1 to 26 in the Tatham Centre, with the all-important match process for this round taking place on the last weekend in October.

Instructional workshops continue in the UW library, with titles like "Find Books and More" and "Smart Searching", all indicating that there's more to be found in the library than a superficial web search will reveal. Scheduled for this morning at 10:30, with a repeat in October, is a 90-minute session on "Applying Social Web Tools to Your Research". The library's tour and workshop page explains: "Learn how to use cool social web tools such as Flickr, del.icio.us. and Bloglines — tools that allow you to organize and share content: photos, websites, and blogs. In this hands-on session you will learn the basics, including how to set up free accounts and how these tools can supplement your web-based research." And Wednesday's there's a session on RefWorks, the software tool that allows library users to manage references, create bibliographies quickly and easily, and format a paper in a choice of citation styles.

The Vancouver-based author credited with coining the term “cyberspace” and establishing cyberpunk as a genre will bring UW his latest look at how technology impacts the world. William Gibson will read from his new novel, Spook Country, and autograph copies Tuesday starting at 7 p.m. in the Festival Room, South Campus Hall. Admission is free. Spook Country continues the weighty themes — including cultural changes since 9/11 and the space where politics and paranoia intersect — that readers of Gibson's work will remember from Pattern Recognition. It also brings back Hubert Bigend, one of several mysterious people involved in events that lead into a world of espionage and of a new tech-dependent art form called locative art. "William Gibson is one of the best-loved writers of science fiction in Canada and throughout the world," said Susan Parsons of the UW bookstore. " He has a gift for helping people envision how technology can impact so many aspects of life, from espionage to art." Gibson's first novel, Necromancer, was published in 1984 and earned Hugo, Nebula and Phillip K. Dick Memorial awards. Genre aficionados consider that book to be the definitive cyberpunk novel. Though he'd used the term cyberspace in an earlier short story, in Necromancer he presented the whole idea of a global information matrix.

Neil Murray, director of staff and labour relations, writes from the human resources department: “The staff relations group recently revised the client group assignments for the Staff Relations Coordinators, and I am notifying each client/department by email.” The updated list of who in HR is responsible for which departments is now available online. And more from Murray: “In addition, we have hired a new Staff Relations Coordinator effective September 1. She is Brenda Ciesarik, who formerly held the position of Compensation Systems Analyst here in HR. She can be reached at bciesari@admmail or extension 35699.”

Internet connections to the campus were down for about ten minutes on Saturday afternoon, the result of what Information Systems and Technology calls "a major failure at Cogent", UW's commercial Internet provider. • Robert Titze, who worked with the buildings and grounds section of Waterloo College Associate Faculties and then with UW's physical resources group from 1959 until his retirement in 1979, died August 16. • The physics department's 50th anniversary photography contest, "Capturing the Beauty of Physics", continues, with a closing date of November 1.

The next draw in UW's 50th Anniversary raffle is to be held on Saturday, which means punters have only a few days left to buy their tickets, at the familiar price of $5 apiece or three for $10. The prize this time: "50 fabulous wines worth up to $50 each . . . a selection of wines with the help of a LCBO consultant including at least two bottles of expensive champagne, ice wine and some Niagara winery offerings". As with the two previous draws, and a final draw scheduled for December, proceeds from the lottery go to a 50th Anniversary scholarship fund. Tickets are on sale around campus from people associated with the anniversary committee, and at outlets such as the bookstore and the Federation of Students office. "We will be at Homecoming Central located in the Student Life Centre," adds Tami Everding on behalf of the committee. "The draw will be held at 3:00 p.m. at the SLC."

CAR

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