REMIX… REVAMP…RELAUNCH: POSS.CA – TORONTO’S ONLINE MAGAZINE FOR JOB SEEKERS

May 2, 2012

FOR RELEASE MAY 2

May 2, 2012, Toronto – Findhelp Information Services relaunches its successful online magazine poss.ca (www.poss.ca) with a new, exciting look and easy-to-use website features, reaffirming the mission of helping Toronto job seekers find employment. The free magazine is chockful of articles, advice and resources designed to help people make it in the current job market. Poss.ca hopes to help readers feel more confident and well-informed before embarking on the often scary and stressful employment hunt.

People probably don’t need to be told that, lately, it hasn’t been the easiest finding work across Canada. In Toronto alone, there are close to 140,000 unemployed! Out of the total population of Toronto, nearly 50 per cent are immigrants, and the unemployment rate for newcomers is at 19.7 per cent. The number of people looking for work while being employed or those secretly hoping to change their careers doesn’t exist. And there’s just no way to measure how many people are struggling with their resumés and cover letters at home and how many are still terrified of using social media to find jobs. Poss.ca knows that looking for work, looking to upgrade skills, or simply “window-shopping” for new careers is par for the course for most Torontonians.

With this in mind, poss.ca went back to the proverbial drawing board to redesign the site to make it current and accessible.

"To serve all those looking for work better, the magazine needed to attract people with a fun new look and to strengthen its efforts to be as current and as realistic as possible when it comes to Toronto’s job market,” said Jane Henderson, President, Findhelp Information Services. “I think this revamped site accomplishes this goal.”

"The new site is great,” said Cheryl May, Executive Director of Skills for Change, a Toronto employment services agency. “This is the kind of innovative engagement that poss.ca is known for, both with those seeking employment and those who support them."

Poss.ca’s new look arrives on May 2. From innovative job hunting strategies, great career profiles and well-researched resources to community services, lists of events, guides to living well on the cheap, and truly fantastic employment tips, poss.ca covers all things employment. The free newsletter, available with registration, reminds users of the daily features as the bilingual magazine takes the city by (gentle) storm and helps people get better jobs.

“Poss.ca is proof of the adage: ‘that which is well designed is also clear.’ Congratulations to all the team for a job well done, to the benefit of all Francophones,” said Guy Lucas, Program and Services Manager, Employment Options, Collège Boréal Toronto.

Poss.ca began its life in the mid-1980s as a newsletter (PosAbilities) started by Susan Stone, an employment counsellor with the City of Toronto’s Social Services. In 1997, the City and Findhelp Information Services (then Community Information Toronto) collaborated with Human Resources Development Canada to provide Toronto residents with online access to employment, education and training information. In 1999, the Possibilities Project became a monthly online magazine. Three years later, its name changed to Possibilities, the city’s first online Employment Resource Centre (ERC). In 2006, Possibilités was created and the website became a bilingual source of information (English and French) for job seekers and career professionals. And now, Possibilities has gone through one more incarnation and has become poss.ca: Toronto’s online magazine for job seekers.

Poss.ca is a project of Findhelp funded by Employment Ontario and the Government of Canada.

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For more information contact:
Darin Meilleur
Manager, Programs and Projects
Findhelp Information Services
Phone: (416) 393-6344
Email: dmeilleur@findhelp.ca