Fresh grad job hunting--help!
April 4, 2011 8:42 AM   Subscribe

New public health graduate looking to find a job in the field within Canada. For some reason, I'm getting nowhere. Any job board suggestions, websites/organizations I should check out?

I'm job hunting in Canada (though currently living in the States), but for some reason I can't seem to find the information that I'm looking for. I'm in the public health field (specifically health communication/promotion and health writing), with interests in global health and some qualitative/quantitative research work, and I've been trying to find organizations somewhat aligned with these interests.

A lot of organizations seem to be connected with the federal/provincial government, and I've checked out a few, but they're not hiring. I've been trying to find Canadian NGO organizations on par with US organizations such as the Carter Institute, Clinton Foundation, PATH (in keeping with my interest in global health), but not finding any. I've also been looking at hospitals (mostly in BC, since that's where I'd like to settle) to see if I can find some research assistant positions, but I'm mostly turning up research lab work jobs. I'm trolling indeed.ca and job banks canada and idealist.org (and I just recently found eluta.ca) frequently, but it's turning up very little. In comparison, I get a lot more results for US based organizations on those sites.

I know that the US and Canadian job markets for public health-related work is very different; there seems to be a heck of a lot more opportunities in the States, for one thing, unless I'm not doing my research correctly. Does anyone have any advice on where to start looking? I feel pretty ignorant here, so any suggestions/questions/invitations to further information is definitely welcome. I'm also open to internship opportunities, since I'm a new grad, and I'm not finding a paying job right now. Thanks!
posted by elisynn to Work & Money (4 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Hmm... have you checked with universities? It looks like the University of British Columbia has several health-related centers: Centre for Health Care Management, for one, and a Centre for Health Services and Policy Research. What, specifically, do you want to do for work? For example, my job title is "Health Communications Specialist" and I spend my time writing and designing web and print content for a University-affiliated center that specializes in health/social sciences research. There must be a corollary to this type of job at Canadian universities, I'm guessing?
posted by booknerd at 9:00 AM on April 4, 2011


I don't know what they're like for global health specifically, but Charity Village often has NGO postings. They focus a bit more on charitable non-profits, but I've definitely found NGO postings there. You can search by city, province, sector, etc.
posted by sabotagerabbit at 9:18 AM on April 4, 2011


Response by poster: @booknerd: I did check UBC. I think most of their jobs get funnelled through one central job application site, but I haven't seen any postings as of late. I think what I'm also little confused about is that in the States, most companies/organizations have open positions posted on their sites. I've seen very little of that in Canadian organizations. So how, exactly, do people find/apply for public health/health promotion type work?

@sabotagerabbit: I think CharityVillage postings get indexed on the Indeed website, but thanks!
posted by elisynn at 8:34 AM on April 5, 2011


In the US, I think most companies are required to post open positions for at least a week before hiring people. I don't know much about hiring in Canada, but I'd recommend just emailing one of those centers and asking if they can put you in touch with their communications person, or if they have a need for volunteers/interns with your interests and expertise.

I've said this a million times on MetaFilter job-hunting threads (mostly related to library science, but I guess it might apply here too), but the best way to get jobs is by being the right person at the right time, and the best way to do that is to be volunteering at the place you want to work, if you're able to do that. At the very least, someone at UBC might know of global health NGO-type organizations that you might want to volunteer for, even if you don't want to volunteer at UBC. Good luck!
posted by booknerd at 7:39 AM on April 6, 2011


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