Co-op Letter

We are excited to be working with approximately 75 pre-screened and motivated students looking for summer employment related to their various field of study in IT or Digital Media.  Our May to August co-op session is very popular with our students and most employers.

Thank you for your past and/or current interest in the NAIT Digital Media and IT and Computer Systems Technology Co-operative Education Program. We hope that your organization is in a position to consider one or more student placements.  Your company provides students an opportunity beyond the classroom in what is often described the highest level of learning, on-the-job training.  Our selected co-op students enter your organization as goodwill ambassadors of NAIT and return back here as your goodwill ambassadors.  In addition your esteemed company is perceived as being an excellent corporate citizen as a co-op employer.

If you were a previous co-op employer, we will be running a compressed timeline for the May term.  Following any interviews that you hold, there will be an opportunity for you to offer jobs directly to the students without going through an extended matching process that could run into April.   

If you are interested in having one or more co-op students for May, 2011, the hiring process will be as follows:

·         You will send the Co-op Coordinator a position summary. There is a Company Recruitment Form attached to this email that can be used for the position summary, or you can use your own format. We will use the information you provide to create a job posting.

·         The job posting will be sent to the students with an application submission deadline. The students will send the applications directly to you by email using an email address that you provide.

·         Once you have reviewed the applications, you may contact the students that you are interested in interviewing. Interviews can occur either at NAIT or at your place of work, depending upon your preference. If you wish to interview at NAIT, please contact Jennifer Macdonald at jenm@nait.ca to book a room and arrange for lunch if it fits into your schedule.

Once the interviews are complete, you can decide whether or not you wish to hire a student. You can offer the student a position immediately – you do not have to wait for the matching process. If the student accepts the position, please notify Jennifer Macdonald.

There will not be a matching process for this session; the greatest pool of qualified candidates will exist at the beginning of this process. Students can be offered positions immediately, and so the top candidates will most likely be chosen quickly. Once a student has accepted a position with any company they are no longer eligible to compete or apply for any other jobs.  We do offer a generic contract that we hope employers and our co-op students will feel comfortable in completing this document as it represents a commitment for both parties to engage.  A copy of this document is also included for your convenience.  Please feel free to edit this document for your intended purpose.

Also, please remember that students need to complete a minimum 15 weeks of full-time employment for a co-op position to allow for course credit.  Accordingly, they will need to start the co-op position no later than the middle of May and finish by the end of August