Hire McMaster, launching Thursday, April 26, is a new, united effort to connect employers with McMaster students for co-op placements, internships and other forms of experiential learning and permanent employment for recent graduates.

“We really want to position McMaster as the ideal place for people to come and hire,” says Dan Hess, a manager of employment development who has been working to launch Hire McMaster. “If you’re looking to hire young people, we want McMaster to be the top place for employers to start.”

Hire McMaster is a streamlined approach to making connections that already see employers bringing in thousands of students each year, including more than 3,500 paid co-op work terms or internships across the university.

The university is hoping to increase these numbers and to build-up the number of other experiential learning opportunities, such as unpaid field placements and practicum placements, by marketing the skills of its students to existing and new employers.

The new campaign is a response to employers who had found it challenging to work through employment-related services offered by separate faculties and departments and creates a single new “front door” for employers who are looking for a one-stop information source on how to find the most qualified students.

“We’d heard from the community that our decentralized career offices were often difficult to navigate,” says Vicki Lowes, the manager of Career and Co-operative Education in the Faculty of Science who chairs the steering committee that is leading the Hire McMaster project. “We want to make it as easy as possible for employers to engage with our offices and students, and for employers to know that we have strong students across the board who can meet their needs.”

Lowes explains that the idea was generated by career-centre managers across campus, including those in Science, Business and Engineering and the central Student Success Centre. All of them, together with partners in Social Sciences, Humanities, Health Sciences, Alumni Advancement and the McMaster Students Union, developed the unified campaign to engage with employers in search of opportunities for McMaster students and recent graduates.

Hire McMaster organizes their efforts to be sure that the university is speaking to employers with one voice, and pools resources to maximize the number of potential employers involved with McMaster students and recent graduates.

Hire McMaster launches Thursday (April 26) with an event featuring university leaders, top employers and student leaders. It’s the same day that the launch version of the new website, hire.mcmaster.ca, is to go live.

The campaign will step up outreach to new employers, with plans to connect with 500 new employers in the first year alone. Hire McMaster will also represent the university more visibly at public events and conferences where employers congregate.