by DAVID MACFADDEN, POSTMEDIA NEWS

A couple generations ago most employers didn’t ask for paperwork when you approached them for a job. If they liked how you looked and how you came across in a brief conversation, you could be hired on the spot.

Once resumés entered the picture they became the standard tool for job applicants. At first they just covered the bare basics: contact info, work history and some  educational background. It didn’t matter whether you were applying to be a choreographer or a morgue attendant; everyone got the same resumé.

Today’s resumé needs to show employers what you can do for their company rather than what you’ve done for somebody else. Job titles and generic lists of duties are less valued than concrete statements explaining how you’ve demonstrated those skills and abilities.

Business and labour criticize Industry Training Authority, but ITA boss points to record number of certifications granted in 2011

BY GLEN KORSTROM, BIV

BC NDP leader Adrian Dix wants to retool B.C.’s Industry Training Authority (ITA) so apprenticeship programs produce a deeper pool of skilled labour and unions have more say in training decisions.

“The major issue facing businesses today is a lack of skilled labour,” Dix said. “The idea that we should exclude labour from the equation doesn’t make practical sense for those programs. You need to involve everybody.”

Organized labour reps remain bitter that the BC Liberals scrapped the Industry Training and Apprenticeship Commission (ITAC) in 2004 and replaced it with the ITA, which was intended to be more responsive to industry needs.

ITAC included board representation one-third each from business, unions and government – a setup that some say resulted in gridlock. ITA has no such requirement for its board.

The Liberals conceived the ITA to be an umbrella organization that spends most of its funding on apprenticeships and subsidizing training at schools. It also buys industry intelligence from six sector-specific industry training organizations (ITOs).

New funding means employers can get $2,800 hiring incentive plus $1,000 for training for each of three new hires

by LORNE MALLIN

Chloe Scarf was feeling burned out as a new entrepreneur trying to keep her Crescent Beach hair salon alive all on her own.

“I was really hitting despair,” said Scarf, who moved from Commercial Drive to South Surrey to launch Seventh Heaven Hair Gallery and Bio Salon Ltd. in September 2007.

She had tried attracting established stylists with their own clientele who would be aligned with her holistic hairstyling vision of using organic, non-synthetic products. No go. Three years ago, Scarf gave a junior stylist named Kaitlin Sheridan a chance, but she needed more confidence and training so it didn’t work out.

Then last year Scarf learned from a client about the provincial Get Youth Working! Program, which, in its January 1, 2011, to March 31, 2012, pilot phase offered a grant of $2,000 for hiring young people aged 15 to 29 for three months, as well as $1,000 for training costs.

Major projects throughout province may spark need for more tradespeople

BY NOA GLOUBERMAN

Growth in various industries throughout British Columbia means skilled trades workers – and students thinking about their career options – may look forward to future employment.

With plans for everything from ships to ski resorts to power projects in the works, more and more tradespeople will be needed to build – and, in some cases, staff – all sorts of new ventures.

According to the Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation – which recently announced that a record-breaking number of skilled tradespersons qualified as journeypersons this year – 104,600 or so trades jobs should open in B.C. in the next decade.

This thanks to major projects like the federal shipbuilding contract won by Seaspan and the Northwest Transmission Line, which are creating trades jobs – now and in the coming years – that need to be filled by skilled men and women.