The shortage of labor does not guarantee a job for those who seek it. The Eurêka Center helps experienced workers aged 40 and over to rebound in the job market. A question of strategy, good techniques… and self-esteem. All this is acquired.
Posted at 6:00 a.m.
A doctorate does not guarantee a new job, nor does it provide the right method to find it.
This quest is rather the specialty of the Center Eurêka, a private non-profit organization that offers consulting services in labor market reintegration strategy to people aged 40 and over.
“For 45 years, we have helped more than 22,000 people with a placement rate of 80 to 85%. Our clientele is usually from the college level to the doctorate,” describes the organization’s executive director, Paul Gagner.
Depending on the year, nearly 5% of his clientele holds a doctorate, he estimates.
PHOTO ROBERT SKINNER, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Hédia Annabi, team leader and employment counselor at Center Eurêka, and Paul Gagner, general manager of the organization
Its center has seen diplomats, lawyers, airplane pilots, former politicians. But also drivers, technicians, department heads. Men and women, of course.
The only criterion is to have three years’ experience in the Canadian labor market.
They knock on the door of the Eureka Center because despite their efforts – and perhaps because of them – they have still not found work several months after losing their jobs.
“Despite the difficulty in recruiting, employers do not want to end up with problems following hiring,” points out Paul Gagner.
For at least five years, it is not so much the skills of the person that interest the employer as knowing if he can easily integrate into his team.
Paul Gagner, General Manager of the Eureka Center
This is often the demonstration that the disillusioned, discouraged and sometimes desperate job seekers who come to the center have not been able to demonstrate.
Their repeated failures make them fear the future, but also doubt the past. Where is their skill? What is their experience worth?
“Our role is to guide, guide, restore confidence, because a large number of our candidates have lost their bearings,” says Hédia Annabi, team leader and employment counselor at the Eurêka Center.
We are going to rebuild their self-esteem, we are going to upgrade their skills, their qualifications. Doubt is one of the major factors that make the person come to see us. They are not able to face an employer or pass an interview. They are paralyzed.
Hédia Annabi, team leader and employment counselor at Center Eureka
If their efforts have not been successful, it is often more because of their attitude than the thickness of their curriculum vitae.
“The person cannot find a job because quite simply, they don’t know themselves, or their behavior is inappropriate. »
It is therefore at this level that we must intervene. The center’s approach is personalized, based on one private meeting per week for a period of six months, followed by four months of support.
All of this is free.
“Our approach is above all based on behavior, which is based on behavior change, therefore psychological observation,” continues the advisor.
“It is also oriented towards humanism. It is a question of emphasizing the capacity of the individual, of making him aware of his difficulties and his resources, of experimenting with new ways of acting, and above all of adapting them to current market strategies. . »
The three S’s
At the Eurêka Centre, job search can be summed up in three “S”s: securing, satisfying and surprising.
“Security by our way of being, our attitude. Satisfy through our curriculum and our professional development. And surprise by our achievements”, describes Hédia Annabi.
The advisor will help the candidate to present his achievements in a new light, in a strategic way and in line with the needs of the employer. “That’s what will bring weight to the candidacy. »
self-marketing
Job seekers must also be properly equipped to market their candidacy – self-marketing.
When Paul Gagner meets job seekers at trade fairs, he asks about their procedures. “When they tell me they’ve made a CV, I ask them how many employers they’ve sent it to in the last six months. Sometimes it’s 30, 40, 50. Have they had any calls? The answer is zero. I then tell them that their CV is not functional and does not meet the needs of employers. »
The Eureka Center has its own “secret recipe”, he says.
Presentation on LinkedIn and presence on social networks are also carefully examined.
The cover letter of candidates, frequently copied on the internet, can make them look bad.
There is a way of writing, there are turns of phrase that are outdated, and that makes a difference. It is important to update them in relation to the reality of the market.
Hédia Annabi, team leader and employment counselor at Center Eureka
They should also give appropriate references – not the name of their favorite colleague. “There is a strategy, a way of doing things, which we discuss with our clients. »
Finally, the candidate prepares for the final test of the interview, with filmed simulations.
New start
As a general rule, candidates who find a job do so after having been involved in the process for four months.
Funded by Services Québec, the Eurêka Center employs nine people, including six counsellors.
While it generally welcomes some 500 job seekers a year, the pandemic has melted the cohort. Over the past year, the centre, which resumed its face-to-face meetings in June 2020, trained 167 candidates.
“Of the 167, we had 119 placements, and these 119 placements represented a payroll of $5 million,” notes Paul Gagner.
That’s an average salary of $42,000.
You have to see it as a springboard.