Career Advisor
Uwaterloo · Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
At the University of Waterloo, we create and promote a culture where everyone can reach their full potential. As an employee, you get support & opportunities that empower you to advance your career. Explore how we can bring big ideas to life, together. The University is a welcoming workplace for those of all abilities, interests, and expertise. As part of our workforce, you can do what you do best, every day.
Learn more about our recruitment process.
Job Requisition ID:
2026-03461
Time Type:
Full time
Employee Group:
Staff
Job Category:
Career and Employment
Employment Type:
Temporary
Department:
Co-operative and Experiential Education - Undergraduate and Co-op Team II
Hiring Range:
$67,688.63 - $84,610.79
Posting Information:
This posting is for an existing vacancy.
2 roles availible: one will be aligned to the Faculty of Math, and the other will be aligned to the Faculty of Health. This alignment is in support of faculty-tailored programming and relationship building
The internal posting deadline for this position is November 12, 2026 at 11:59PM.
Job Description:
Primary Purpose
Career Advisors support students and/or alumni to identify and achieve their career and employment goals. They help them to identify their values, needs and skills and use this information to seek out, engage in, and extract meaning from a wide variety of experiences. Each career advisor tends to work closely with a particular group of learners, such as undergraduate students, graduate students, students who wish to pursue professional or graduate school and/or alumni. There are opportunities to specialize within the role in areas such as career indecision or change, continuing education, navigating the co-op process, career curriculum development, peer advising supervision, etc.
Key Accountabilities
Support students and/or alumni in employment, career decision-making and strategy, further education, and/or co-op and work-integrated learning (WIL) contexts
• Develop strong, supportive advising relationships that are adaptable to people from all identities and experiences.
• Cultivate trust with people in one-on-one environments, centering attention on the values and needs of the person seeking service and creating an environment that encourages the development of self-efficacy, resilience, and career optimism.
• Facilitate reflection through active listening and interviewing skills to help people identify and synthesize self-information for use in a variety of career, employment, and further education settings.
• Capably help people to find and access the tools and resources that will help them identify and/or pursue their priorities and goals.
• Support people to understand and navigate sometimes-opaque employment and institutional systems.
• Facilitate learning through group advising, workshops, webinars, presentations, events and resources to meet student/alumni needs, customized to the audience (e.g., specific associations/academic programs; in and outside of the classroom).
• Guide people in accessing and using labour market and other sources of information to build their understanding of the world of work
• Tailor approach to setting (in person, by phone, online) and the individual’s needs through active listening, application of counselling microskills, and relevant content knowledge.
• Plan and run effective, tailored career- and employment-related events.
• Enhance programming for prospective and pre-arrival students across campus.
Strengthen on-campus reputation as source of curricular and co-curricular career learning and growth
• Support other on-campus Advisors in developing best practices-aligned services encompassing career education.
• Coach other on-campus Advisors on a case-by-case basis to enable effective career supports.
• Build relationships with campus colleagues to educate on referral processes, resources, and train-the-trainer opportunities.
• Build or facilitate access to career resources that anticipate and target campus partners’ needs in supporting students.
Deliver inclusive career education in partnership with CCA’s stakeholders
• Design creative approaches to supporting and guiding a community of students and/or alumni in career, employment, further education, cooperative education and/or other experiential education settings.
• Ground career development approaches in contemporary career education and student development theories (e.g., Narrative, Design Thinking, Active Engagement, Planned Happenstance, Career Construction).
• Maintain awareness of current career development issues and labour market trends
• Develop and maintain a thorough knowledge of other University of Waterloo and community resources.
• Develop training and tools for fellow Career Advisors; share expertise; support cross-training.
• Support Faculty personnel (instructors and academic advisors) to develop their confidence and depth of understanding of how to facilitate effective career and co-op conversations.
• Influence stakeholder perspectives on career education, such as: the value and pervasiveness of non-linear pathways, emerging labour market trends, relevant career development theories/metaphors.
• Collaborate with the Faculty Relations Managers and the Career Education Strategy and Communication Specialist to develop effective storytelling for clients.
• Educate and support student-staff and other student and alumni leaders/influencers in employment topics; collaborate on targeted events (in person and online).
• Promote awareness and understanding of CCA (e.g., through student orientation, outreach)
Bring functional leadership to key service(s) and portfolio(s). Areas of impact could include:
Alumni
• Partner with Waterloo alumni, often in time-limited situations, to find or create meaningful work and learning opportunities.
Career Exploration and Decision Making
• Support clients through individual and group engagement methods to deepen student/alumni self-awareness.
• This portfolio may provide the opportunity to meet clinical experience requirements for College of Registered Psychotherapists of Ontario (CRPO).
Undergraduate and Co-op Employment Advising
• Support students to gain employment (resumes, cover letters, managing online presence, work search tactics, interviews, negotiating salary).
• Guide and support students new to co-op in navigating the co-op employment process.
Further Education
• Support people to identify and work toward their further education goals; often related to health employment goals.
• Research and organize profession-specific resources and admission policy information for graduate school, professional school and college programs.
Graduate Students and Postdocs
• Partner with Master’s students, PhD candidates and Postdocs to navigate the world of career and employment in any sector.
Peer Advisor Programming
• Support CCA’s Career Leader program, including recruiting, training, scheduling, coaching team of 10-20 student-staff; ensure quality of service.
• Support CCA’s training and mentorship role for student leaders across campus, including training, coaching Housing Dons and Teaching Assistants for Career Fundamentals course (PD1) and Coop Fundamentals for Engineering module
Additional functional leads also exist for special initiatives and curriculum development work.
*All employees of the University are expected to follow University and departmental health and safety policy, procedures and work practices at all times. Employees are also responsible for the completion of all health and safety training, as assigned. Employees with staff supervision and/or management responsibilities will ensure that assigned staff abide by the above, and actively identify, assess and correct health and safety hazards, as required.
Required Qualifications
Education
• Undergraduate university degree required
• Courses, training, certification/degree or equi