The last two months have brought a flurry of activity I'm now happy to find the time to report. Most notably, the Job Talks national survey of skilled tradespeople has been completed! This means that we have collected responses from approximately 1,000 skilled men and women from across Canada. More on this to come in another post. Since finishing the administration of our survey in April, the research team has been able to make a few public appearances as we fully shift into Phase 2 of our project. We started May off at the Skills Ontario Competition, engaging with the trades community and filming our first 30+ interviews. The competition is an event too massive and impressive for me to do justice in just one post. Suffice to say it's where the best and brightest in the trades gather to meet and exhibit their skills. More info on the event can be found here: https://www.skillsontario.com/skills-competitions.
That's me, interviewing just a sample of the passionate men and women I had the privilege of sitting down with on Day 1. In the bottom-left photo you can also spot Ahmed Said, the newest member of the Job Talks team. Ahmed joined the team in April as our videographer and has done a phenomenal job planning and executing the filmed interviews. Welcome, Ahmed!
By the end of Day 2 at the Skills Competition, I was amazed by the wide variety of perspectives that were shared with us. At the same time, there were some undeniable commonalities in the experiences of these men and women. Many of these themes are at play in the data set from our survey, which made it very exciting to hear first-hand accounts. If I could summarize all of our interviewees in just a couple of words: good people. After spending much of May in the video-editing booth, the team was glad to participate in Applied Research Day at George Brown College. Here we were able to showcase some of the work we've done thus far, which included our very own Dr. Jon Callegher on "The Next Ten" panel about the future of research at the college.
It's wonderful to have the partners and supporters we've been able to find for our project. Many thanks to all those who have gotten involved. The summer months are sure to bring more travels as we work to film nearly 100 interviews with passionate, skilled men and women who love their jobs. If this sounds like you or someone you know, get in touch via the "Contact" page! -Benjamin Millard, Research Assistant