Friday, March 11, 2011

Another Success Story in Hamilton


Apprentice Erin Cannon, and Service Manager David Rodgers


Canadian Tire, Upper Gage

The first Canadian Tire store was founded in Toronto in 1922. In 1934, twelve years later, Canadian Tire opened its first store on Ottawa Street in Hamilton. Now there are over 482 stores across Canada employing more than 58,000 employees. The majority of the stores operate in distinct categories of auto parts, auto service, tools, hardware, sporting goods, houseware and seasonal items.

I spoke to David Rodgers, Service Manager of the Upper Gage location, established in 1982, to get his views on our website “apprenticesearch.com”. He heard about the website about a year ago through an employment job bank. “It’s a great website, why go anywhere else to post a job opportunity when this website is FREE and provides great service and has qualified applicants looking to get started in the skilled trades”, he said. David has hired five people from our site, some getting started in the auto trade and others as signed apprentices.

Over the years, David has helped many students decide if this is the career for them by taking on co-op students from nearby high schools. When I asked him what feature he liked best about the site he said “Once your posting has been approved it’s great how fast the applicants start applying to the posting”. “I receive their resumes by email and I can look them over to see if they have the qualifications I’m looking for and call them right away for an interview”.

I also spoke to Erin Cannon, who was recently hired there through our website as a second year Automotive Service Technician Apprentice. Erin took co-op in high school and knew then that the auto trade was the career she wanted to pursue.

Erin is active in mentoring at seminars including:
- Skills Canada – Ontario “Skills Work! For Women” networking dinners
- Hamilton Training Advisory Board’s “TECH: Technology and Trades for Women”. Erin heard about our website while attending this event at the Hamilton Convention Centre.

Erin is enjoying learning new skills at this location of Canadian Tire store and is working towards completing her apprenticeship. Good luck and all the best Erin!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

That sounds great exept for the fact I've heard stories about Gage and fennell like how you make the aprentices paint and clean the shop instead of working on cars and make coop kids clean the shop instead on learning on there career choice lol free help and the fact remains that David has only been a service mangaer for a year so your whole storie is wrong