Bell wants to hire a thousand employees

While the technology industry is cutting jobs by the tens of thousands, Bell Canada is choosing the opposite path: the telecommunications company wants to hire a thousand people.

These new employees will be mainly assigned to “high technologies” such as cloud computing, networking, cybersecurity, the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and software development, explains Nicholas Payant, vice-president of operations and to the mainnet at Bell. “We build a lot of new services that we design ourselves, we like to do our business the Quebec way, the Canadian way. »

These innovations essentially serve to improve the customer experience and the networks used by the various Bell entities. We are not talking about more advanced service projects for businesses, such as cloud computing installations like what Amazon and Microsoft offer.

2% increase

We make no secret of it at Bell, layoffs in technology companies – some 191,000 in 2022 and early 2023, according to the aggregator Layoffs.fyi – constitute great hiring opportunities. “We posted this ad on LinkedIn in June, to take advantage of the fact that there are a lot of resources available with our American competitors who leave a lot of them,” explains Marie-Josée Boivin, Vice President of Organizational Development at Bell.

Already half of the posted positions have been filled. A second recruitment campaign, organized on LinkedIn from mid-December until February, should make it possible to find the half-thousand recruits still sought.

According to its latest annual report, Bell had 49,781 employees at the end of 2021. The hiring effort since last June would therefore increase the number of positions by 2%. “The number of 1,000 people may seem like a lot, but it’s critical for the future of the company to find talent,” says Mr. Payant. But how can the Canadian telecommunications giant hire when its North American competitors seem to be on the decline? “During the pandemic, we may have been more conservative, while some have increased their workforce,” he replies.

“These companies have grown during the pandemic for different reasons, adds Mr.^me Bovine. We are not new hires for which we suddenly said to ourselves: “Here, we are going to do them”, these are needs that we had. »

Come back to the country

Committed to the large-scale implementation of 5G in Canada, with 11% of its employees assigned to the media division and 3.9 million internet subscribers, Bell has changed a lot since its founding 142 years ago, recalls Ms. Payable. “People still think we’re a phone company, but we’re now a company that wants to sell tech products […] In the digital world, there are “flyées” business that we do, it’s very beautiful to see that. »

Good seller, M.^me Boivin touts his employer’s many opportunities for promotion and internal reassignment. “Several of our people left for large American companies have become numbers. Some came back. »

With inflation galloping for more than a year, are wage offers on the rise? “By already being in advanced technologies for more complex positions, we have a robust salary structure…”, she replies modestly.