CREDIT: COURTESY OF FANSHAWECOLLEGE.MAGNET.TODAY
The set up is quick and simple. All you have to do is wait for someone to approach you. Wait, am I looking for a date or a job?

Magnet – where employers come chasing you, not the other way around.

Such is the job-searching service incubated out of Ryerson University created by students for students to find the right job and the right employer. Or is it the other way around?

Benga Oyewole, Magnet’s Fanshawe College representative, says it’s not like job sites we’re used to visiting.

“It is not entirely a job site, it’s a site that brings the employers to the candidates,” Oyewole said. “If students put a profile on Magnet, employers come to the database and search for the candidate they are looking for.”

Oyewole says employers will immediately contact the student whose resumé meets the criteria.

What’s interesting about the service is that prospects’ name and photo is hidden from employers, and employers pay Magnet to release the information, making it different from LinkedIn, another popular professional networking site.

Fanshawe Career Services consultant Sarah Ruttan likens Magnet to a dating site like Match.com.

“This is more for finding the perfect employer,” Ruttan said. “You put your credentials out there and an employer can go in and select a number of different qualities that they’re looking for in an employee, and the more information you put in, the more detailed the better.”

In the end, this benefits both parties, Ruttan says.

“The job does come chasing you,” she said. “A lot of time and effort and money goes into finding the right employee, so this just helps with that process.”

Students who do participate in Magnet are exposed to a wealth of companies, Oyewole says, as the service is managed by the Chamber of Commerce.

“All the [employers] in Ontario are on Magnet: IBM, CIBC, TD, Microsoft,” he said. “It’s for all fields as well. For engineering, for financial services, accounting. It’s massive.”

So now’s the perfect time to set up a profile on Magnet.

“They are for summer positions, they are for part-time, they are for full-time,” Oyewole said.

Currently, Fanshawe has a large presence on the site.

“We have over 2,500 candidates on it from Fanshawe,” Oyewole said. “I can share that information confidently. It’s growing every day.”

And Ruttan echoed this.

“We’re seeing postings hourly here at Fanshawe.”

Fanshawe is among the 16 post-secondary institutions registered with Magnet.

Students can visit fanshawecollege.magnet.today to create a profile or to get more information.