Step-by-step co-op hiring guide

WaterlooWorks is our centralized recruitment and hiring platform. We’ve customized it to connect employers with top student talent. WaterlooWorks will help you find the right fit for your job and connect with your service team.

Within two business days of registering, you’ll receive an email with more information. Once your registration is approved, a member of our service team will reach out. We’re available to offer support through recruitment and hiring.

Once you’ve registered for an account on WaterlooWorks, you can post or repost a job for the upcoming work term.

When you post your job will determine the hiring cycles and timeline you'll follow. Our recruitment dates outline the hiring cycles and applicable dates and due dates.

Students will see your job title and description. Here are a few tips and resources to help attract the right applicants:

• Choose an accurate job title that reflects the position.
• Write an engaging job description.
• Include compensation and benefits information like a salary range, or any other benefits your organization offers. Providing salary details can increase your chances of finding the right applicants to fill your role(s).
• Indicate whether the employment location arrangement is in-person, remote or a hybrid of both to help students make informed application decisions.
• Add up to five pre-screening questions to job postings to collect information from applicants. If a job has required skills or experience, the pre-screening questions will help you filter applications and select those with the correct qualifications to save time when interviewing.
• Use thematic and academic clusters to target your job posting to the right applicants. Students use these clusters to find jobs of interest based on job function and program.

Part of the process of posting your job on the WaterlooWorks co-op job board is making an interview reservation. An interview reservation lets us know when you want to conduct your interviews, and what method you want to use. It is like a “save the date” that helps us support you through your interviews.

After you make the interview reservation, block the time in your calendar for interviewing candidates.

Why add an interview reservation?

• You need an interview reservation to make an interview schedule in WaterlooWorks.
• It will help you plan and prepare for your interviews in advance (and helps us support you!)
• It will reserve your interview slot to avoid losing your preferred interview time.

Note: If you’re not ready to make a reservation or have other plans for your interviews, please send us a message on WaterlooWorks. We can better support you if we know your plan.

After the application closes, you'll be able to view applications in WaterlooWorks. The application due date in the job posting is the date the job posting closes. We’ll also send you an email notification when the applications are available to review.

You will be prompted to select candidates and submit your interview schedule at least four days before your interview reservation date. The candidates you’ve selected to interview will each choose an interview time from the schedule.

Tips:

• Download application packages and sort/filter applicants based on various criteria to help you screen applications
• Use answers to your pre-screening questions to isolate qualified candidates.
• Select alternate candidates to interview. Sometimes, students can’t attend interviews due to academic or personal reasons. Choosing alternates ensures that you have enough candidates to select from.
• Submit your interview schedule as soon as possible. This will help to ensure that the students you choose will have enough time to select a time slot and prepare for their interview.

Once you have an approved interview schedule, you’ll receive an email with next steps. You can view your interview schedule, including student names and timeslots, in WaterlooWorks. We can help manage your interview schedule and address any interview conflicts.

You can conduct your interviews using one of the following methods:

• WaterlooWorks integrated webcam
• Your preferred digital platform (i.e., Teams, Google Meet, etc.)
• Phone
• In-person at one of our campuses. There are limited in-person bookings available for Tatham Centre, University of Waterloo.

After you’ve completed interviews, you’ll submit rankings for each candidate you interviewed. You must submit your rankings before the due date for the cycle you interviewed in. Students will rank your job in return. The lower the sum of employer and student rankings (e.g., employer ranking 1 + student ranking 1 = 2), the greater your chances of being matched.

Please note:

• Only rank candidates that you would be willing to hire.
• Submit your rankings before the ranking due date. If your rankings are not submitted on time, the rankings will be included in the next cycle’s match but the students may no longer be available. If you are late to submit rankings, contact your account co-ordinator for options.
• We recommend using the optional compensation/benefits and job location fields of your ranking form to enter details about the rate of pay for the role, any benefits, and the location where the student will spend their work term. These details help students to make ranking decisions and can help you secure the right student for your role.
• Include personalized comments in the Note to Student box. This can include things like interview feedback or additional role, salary, benefits or location information. Students appreciate these details!

We will send you a message to notify you of the results following a match. A match is equivalent to an accepted job offer. It indicates that a student has committed to working with you for the work term. The student(s) you matched with will contact you to make further arrangements.

If you don’t match with any students, don’t worry! You can repost your job and take part in the next hiring cycle.

If you haven’t matched with a student, or if you submit your job after our hiring cycles have ended, you can still hire a student during our direct offer stage.

Direct offers generally begin about a month before the start of the new work term. It continues until the students need to start to get their co-op credit (at least 12 weeks working). You’ll still post your job on the WaterlooWorks co-op job board during direct offers. However, you’ll handle the interviews and offers yourself — not through WaterlooWorks.

How does direct offers work?

• Post your job on the WaterlooWorks > Hire Waterloo Co-op job board.
• Review your applications (available three business days after posting your job).
• Select the students you want to interview in WaterlooWorks.
• Contact students directly to set up interviews via phone/webcam.
• After you’ve completed your interviews, contact students directly to make offers.
• If the student accepts your offer, forward the email confirming the student’s acceptance to your account co-ordinator.

Here are tips to help prepare for your student’s work term:

• If your organization is from outside of Canada, review visa/work permit requirements.
• Download work term confirmation and tax credit documents as needed from WaterlooWorks.
• Send details about the role to your student (e.g., start and end dates, work hours, any specific attire or equipment, etc.)
• Review work term milestones and requirements.  You’ll need to provide a mid-term virtual check in and an end-of-term student performance evaluation.
• Follow our guide to create or refresh your onboarding process.