Worth the Wait

Worth the Wait

Video production company finds a gem in its own backyard

BizClip, a Hamilton company that produces online videos and commercials, has grown considerably since securing its first big corporate customer, the Goldbook directory. The company has expanded to also serve Yellowbook in the US, Canpages, and recently secured contracts in Europe and in the Middle East.

“We’re just going crazy,” says BizClip’s Chief Financial Officer Paula DeAngelis, who had little time to properly screen and recruit new applicants for a call centre position last summer. She needed someone with advanced computer skills who would be friendly and professional when calling clients to arrange and liaise film shoots with the videographer. So she connected with Goodwill Works.

Goodwill, The Amity Group was started in Hamilton in 1935 to help men who had lost their jobs in the great depression. Today it helps people in Hamilton to find and maintain employment. It serves people who have an employment barrier, and that could mean anything – an ineffective resume, a physical or mental disability, or simply not knowing where to find the right job.

“They were great,” says DeAngelis. “They interviewed us about our needs, searched their database, and only presented us with people who would be a good fit. And they were right on.”

Ultimately it’s up to the employer to read resumes and decide which applicants to interview, but the agency seemed to gently nudge BizClip toward one person they called a “particularly good catch.”

“They said, ‘we think she’s a perfect fit,’ and from the moment Denise walked in, wow, we could tell,” says DeAngelis. “From the questions she asked and her interest in our business we thought, ‘this girl knows what she’s doing’ and we could see potential for management level as well.”

Denise had lost a previous job due to restructuring and, for the first time in her life, was having difficulty finding work. After several months she approached Goodwill Works, where a career counselor looked at her resume, reviewed her skills and recommended she attend a weekly networking club to get informed on any job leads. With the combined efforts of Denise and her counselor, the job search was on.

“They were looking, as well as assisting in anything I needed for my own search,” she says. “Goodwill is always on the lookout for resourcing new employment opportunities and sharing that with their clients.”

It was ultimately the agency that found BizClip. Denise started her job the day after Labour Day, 2008 and is being hailed as “just wonderful” by her employer. DeAngelis intends to use GoodWill Works again and says the agency is “already on the prowl” for people with IT skills, accounting skills, and fluency in French.

Meanwhile, Denise finds her new job an ideal fit. “I’m very, very happy here,” she says.
“People have gotten to know us after 70 years of doing this,” says Kathy Badgley, director of Goodwill Works. The agency not only matches employers with skilled employees, but stays in touch with employers and their new hires to follow up and offer support, or even job caching, as needed.

Badgley encourages employers to take advantage of the service, both to meet their own employment needs and to give skilled applicants a chance:

“It could be any one of us who might need help finding employment, at any given time.”