Hire Waterloo interns/co-op students for positions in health-care, public health and health-care technology

Collage of different scenes of co-op students working in the healthcare industry

Canadian health systems are rapidly evolving. To establish stability and innovation now and in the future, health-focused organizations including clinics, long-term care homes, hospitals and support networks must begin preparing and training the future generation of talent.

Waterloo co-op students learn from leading academics and researchers, who equip them to meet the needs of the evolving health-care industry. From launching major digital records initiatives to patient care and medical research, Waterloo co-op students offer immense value to their workplaces.

 Top reasons to hire from Waterloo

#1 in Canada for employer-student connections.

#1 on the QS Graduate Employability Ranking 2020 list. That’s why more than 8,000 employers choose to hire Waterloo!
Invest in your business.

On average, companies see a return of $2 for every $1 invested from  hiring Waterloo
co-op students.
Waterloo students are leaders in their field.

95% of Faculty of Health graduates are either employed in their field or pursuing further education one year after graduating.

How does co-op work?

1) Register and post Affordable way to fill your talent needs

Access 25,000+ students available for full-time positions.
2) Interview and hire Talent from 120+ accredited programs

Hire a student for 12 to 16 weeks.
3) Repeat Students are available year-round

Easily repost your job for the next work term on WaterlooWorks.

Join our Co-op Fundamentals Info Session

Gain insights on recruiting co-op talent, navigating Waterloo's hiring process, applying for funding opportunities and how we can support you.

Jobs Waterloo co-op students can fill

Waterloo students have the skills and experience to work in health-care technology, med-tech, health and safety, clinics, hospitals, long-term care and more. Learn more about the areas where students can support your organization in a few common job categories below.

Tip for posting your job: Employers can use clusters to target students they believe would be best suited for the job. Clusters are sorted into academic (course specific) and thematic (industry specific). Learn more about clusters and how to use them to advertise your job.

Business and Administration Support Services

Sample jobs:

  • Human resources

  • Staff accountant

  • Business analyst

  • Marketing specialist

  • Web designer

  • Customer support liaison

  • Office administrator

  • Project Management co-ordinator

  • Documentation clerk

  • Financial analyst

Sample job responsibilities:

  • Create marketing materials

  • Provide customer support (emails, live chat, phone)

  • Perform audits and tests including confirmation of accounts, inventory observation, reconciliation of balances and vetting source documents

  • Provide support to Finance and Accounting department

  • Post, update and remove job ads from job boards, careers pages and social networks

  • Track project schedules, key dates and reporting deadlines

  • Consult with business partners to provide critical data insights

Sample thematic job clusters:
Business administration
Marketing and communications
Sales and business development
Accounting and financial auditing
Finance and investment
Digital graphic media
Human resources
Insurance and risk management

Clinics

Sample jobs:

  • Physiotherapy assistant

  • Therapeutic recreation co-ordinator

  • Chiropractic assistant

  • Reception and admin

Sample job responsibilities:

  • Assist with new patient exams

  • Plan, direct and deliver recreation-based therapy programs for people with disabilities, injuries or illnesses

  • Scan and upload reports into the
    electronic medical record system

  • Assess client needs

  • Provide timely information to the physician about client performance

  • Record procedures

  • Develop X-rays

  • Client reception, patient records management and scheduling

Sample thematic job clusters:
Healthcare: public health and wellness
Healthcare: therapy and patient care
Human factors and ergonomics

health-care Technology/ MedTech

Sample jobs:

  • Medical imaging research student

  • Medical device software developer

  • Bioengineering research assistant

  • Robotics and embedded sensor research

Sample job responsibilities:

  • Design and develop hardware for handheld imaging devices

  • Develop software and effective UX/UI

  • Perform medical imaging segmentation

  • Analyze medical images

  • Test and confirm QA standards

  • Analyze statistical outcomes

Sample thematic job clusters:
Computing: software
Computing: hardware
Medical devices and diagnostics
Scientific design and laboratory assistant
Human factors and ergonomics

Health, Safety and Wellness

Sample jobs:

  • Student ergonomist

  • Wellness, health and safety summer student

  • Health and safety program developer

  • Fitness manager

  • Occupational health associate

  • Health promotion assistant

Sample job responsibilities:

  • Conduct job safety analysis

  • Research, develop and implement a safety, ergonomics and wellness program

  • Assist in creating a safe and healthy workspace

  • Analyze job demands, assess work station ergonomics, provide individual plans

  • Create and deliver wellness program

  • Development of healthy policy information and guidelines targeted to businesses

  • Collect and summarize relevant statistics and research current issues in workplace health

Sample thematic job clusters:
Occupational health and safety
Healthcare: public health and wellness
Healthcare: therapy and patient care
Human factors and ergonomics
Sport and fitness

Hospitals

Sample jobs:

Clinical research patient care

  • Clinical assistant

  • Medical imaging research student

  • Student screener

  • Disease prevention modeler

  • Bioinformatics research assistant

Informatics, IT and Project Management

  • Medical technology application support

  • Health information analyst

  • Chemical laboratory technician

  • Health informatics

  • Go-Live analyst

  • eHealth documenter

Note: many jobs under the “clinics” category also take place in the hospital setting

Sample job responsibilities:

  • Develop solutions using database and programming technologies

  • Perform experiments testing the sensitivity of receiver hardware

  • Perform lab testing and analysis

  • Participate in medication utilization projects, policy and procedure reviews, and implementation

  • Record medication histories for patients

  • Client reception, records management and scheduling

  • Document/log system bugs in eHealth tools

  • Analyze complex data sets, translate into reports, plans and insights

  • Design an application for a handheld version of medical software

  • As a team, develop mass transition plans and protocols; deploy, assess and support staff for success

Sample thematic job clusters:
Occupational health and safety
Data analytics
Statistical analysis and mathematical optimization
Information science and data management
Project and process management

Long-term care

Sample jobs:

  • Care support assistant

  • Residential co-ordinator

  • Emergency support worker

  • Student therapist

  • Recreational programming assistant

  • Nutrition assistant

Sample job responsibilities:

  • Assist in performing cognitive and physical assessments as required
    to monitor the performance of individual residents

  • Record exercise sessions to track progress

  • Ensure proper documentation
    management of all care plans, nurses' notes and all other resident documentation

  • Develop and lead wellness and recreation programs for seniors

Sample thematic job clusters:
Healthcare: public health and wellness
Healthcare: therapy and patient care
Sport and fitness

Pharmacy

Sample jobs:

  • Pharmacy student

  • Oncology inpatient pharmacy student

  • Renal program pharmacy student

  • Drug distribution student

Sample job responsibilities:

  • Participate in medication utilization projects, policy and procedure reviews, and implementation

  • Record medication histories for patients

  • Patient reception, scheduling and triage

  • Inventory management and replenishing point of use medication cabinets

  • Unit dose prepackaging (oral solid and liquid)

Sample thematic job clusters:
Pharmacy and pharmaceuticals
Healthcare: public health and wellness

Public Health

Sample jobs:

  • Health promotions assistant

  • Student kinesiologist

  • Corporate events co-ordinator

  • Jr. policy analyst

  • Market researcher

  • Communications associate

Sample job responsibilities:

  • Manage projects and the flow of information

  • Assess and develop health and wellness guides for the workplace

  • Coordinate travel, meetings, materials and shipping

  • Assist with project proposals

  • Coordinate with internal and external contacts to support the completion of research and program initiatives

  • Plan community awareness campaigns and events

  • Create social media, website or communications collateral for campaigns

Sample thematic job clusters:
Healthcare: public health and wellness
Healthcare: therapy and patient care
Healthcare: policy development
Sport and fitness
Data analytics
Process and project management
Public policy, service and government relations
Event planning and co-ordination
Marketing and communications

Don’t see what you’re looking for? With students from 120+ programs available each term, we can help you find the talent you need. Connect with us today!

Industry-leading companies hire co-op students

Businesses of every size choose to hire from Waterloo. Here’s a small snapshot of health-care organizations that hire Waterloo students: 

  • Schlegel Villages

  • Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

  • University Health Network

  • Cancer Care Ontario

  • Heart Stroke Foundation

  • Sports Medicine and Rehab Center

  • Ontario Ministry of Health Long-TermCare

  • Premier Homecare Services

  • Region of Peel

  • L'ArcheCanada

  • Canadian Institute for Health Information

  • YMCA

  • Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

  • Toronto Rehabilitation Institute

  • St. Joseph’s health-care

  • Agfa health-care

  • Goldsworthy Chiropractic and Wellness Center

  • Public Safety Canada

  • Grand River Hospital

  • Credit Valley Wellness Centre

Hear from The Centre for Applied Genomics (TGAG) and their experience hiring Waterloo co-op students

View on YouTube

There are so many examples of significant impacts that Waterloo students have had on our work. We've had students work on new machine learning methods for understanding the human genome, verifying and validating findings in our autism genomic study and working on the annotation of human chromosome seven. Waterloo students help us identify students who might be good employees later.

RICHARD WINTLE, assistant director of TGAG

Top wage subsidies and tax incentives for hiring co-op

Student Work Placement Program (SWPP) Recieve up to $5,000 per co-op student

Through SWPP, organizations in Canada that offer full-time employment opportunities for full-time Canadian post-secondary students can receive wage subsidies. Several partners that deliver this funding for the health-care sector include BioTalent Canada and the Ontario Chamber of Commerce.

How much is this funding?

Funding will cover up to 50% wage subsidy (up to a maximum of $5,000 per 4-month work term)

  • Organizations within Canada that offer full-time employment opportunities between 12–16 weeks for full-time post-secondary students can receive wage subsidies.
  • Students hired from under-represented groups may be eligible to have up to 70% of their wages subsidized.This is determined on a case-by-case basis at the end of each work term.
Am I eligible?
  • Positions must be net new to qualify for SWPP funding (i.e.: positions over and above what employers hired last year at the same time)
  • There is SWPP funding available to employers in all industries.
  • Employers can hire students in any program (i.e., Arts, Business, Science, Health, etc.).
  • Students must be Canadian citizens, permanent residents or a person to whom refugee protection has been conferred under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act for the duration of employment to qualify for funding from SWPP.
  • Post-secondary institutions now qualify for SWPP funding as long as the experience is a quality work-integrated learning opportunity that's linked to the student's program of study and career goals. This also applies to research positions.
  • Provincial and territorial governments are NOT eligible for SWPP funding.
How can I apply? You apply directly to each funding partner. We've put together a helpful list of details for all of the funding partners.
What's the application due date? Applications are open and due dates vary by funding partner.

Ontario Co-operative Education Tax Credit $3,000 tax credit per co-op student

Other provincial-based tax credits and incentives are available based on region.

How much is the tax credit?

Large corporations can claim 25% of expenditures, up to $3,000, while small businesses can claim 30% of expenditures up to $3,000, per eligible work placement. This tax credit is available for each work placement. Each work placement needs to be a minimum of 10 weeks and maximum of 4 months with no cap on the amount of eligible work placements an employer submits.

Employers may have multiple work placements which take place at the same time and throughout the year (I.e. If an organization decides to hire for an eight-month work term, or two students for four-month work terms, both would be considered as two work placements and would be eligible for a total tax credit of up to $6,000).
Am I eligible? Any Ontario employer hiring students from a post-secondary co-op program is eligible.
How can I apply? Corporations claim the tax credit on Schedule 550 of their T2 corporation income tax return. Unincorporated businesses claim the credit on Form ON479 in their tax return.Learn more about the forms you need to submit on the government website.
What's the application due date? Tax season each year.

A tip to maximize your funding

Student Work Placement Program (SWPP) funding can be combined with the Ontario Co-operative Education Tax Credit. This means that you might be eligible to receive.

For example: for each student you hire, you could receive up to $5,000 in SWPP funding plus an Ontario Co-operative Education Tax Credit of up to $3,000 in expenditures not covered by SWPP!

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