Krystle Paskaruk was the only Manitoban to receive accolades at the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) Career Services’ appreciation night Nov. 28 in Toronto.
For the last three years, Paskaruk has worked side-by-side with RBC and other major employers as a co-operative education co-ordinator for the University College of the North (UCN) at their Thompson and The Pas campuses.
“I was very grateful that the work that we’ve been doing and the career services that we are developing here at UCN are being recognized at the national level,” she told the Thompson Citizen Jan. 17. “At that point in time I wasn’t aware that they were actually going to be doing something with this type of formal recognition, so it was a surprise on the actual day of the event.”
For Paskaruk, the certificate of appreciation she received from RBC represents the culmination of an extremely busy year, where she spearheaded a number of different events and initiatives designed to help prepare post-secondary students for the working world.
This includes organizing an industry engagement night in November that attracted 300 participants and an employer luncheon last March to thank over 60 Thompson businesses and organizations for participating in UCN’s co-op program.
Moving into 2019, Paskaruk said she wants to maintain a lot of the same programs and continue to provide career coaching, mentoring and career development support to her students.
“The work that I’m doing is giving students the tools, knowledge and skills that they are going to need to go out there in the workforce and not just find any job but really find a job that they love and enjoy,” she said. “We spend a great deal of time at work and it’s important that we can find something that we really like to do.”
