Quote:
Originally Posted by Azure
You know I grew up in small town Alberta and I don't remember a single recruiter from any 'blue collar' company coming to talk to us about the work they do. The reason I threw in the 'small town Alberta' part is because one would think small town kids who grew up on farms/ranches, etc would be more inclined to do blue collar work.
Many of my friends went to work in the O&G sector(there was a boom at the time), Fortis, Vestas, etc....but I do not remember anyone from those companies coming to talk to us. I do however remember all too well people coming from the U of C business administration school telling us how the MBA & engineering program would serve us well in the future.
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Your personal experience sheds a little light on your views. As I’m sure you know the majority of graduates(and Albertans in general) don’t live in small towns. I’m sure you would probably also agree that financially it may not be cost effective to visit a lot of remote areas for promotional tours. A trade is a complicated thing to promote because most tradespeople, even within a specific trade, work for different employers. An individual employer may not need to actively recruit tradespeople, and typically they would probably prefer to hire someone with even a little bit of experience.
Oil companies and universities were there because they could profit from being. As you stated, there was an oil boom at the time you were in high school, go back to your same high school today and I highly doubt you see any O&G recruiters. Universities will still be there because because they can still make money off having you enroll.
So while I agree with you that trades should be promoted, I’m not sure how much more can be done and I don’t think that the government can be reasonably expected to compete with private sector recruitment practices used by for profit employers and companies(ie:universities)