Did you know that both employers and students benefit from the Canadian Tire-sponsored Automotive Service Technician training at Centennial College? For students, it is an opportunity to learn new skills and move up on the automotive industry. Meanwhile, John Morin, Service Manager from a Canadian Tire store explains how this undertaking benefits employers. “The benefits from an employer’s standpoint are that all the classroom training is complete,” he says. “We have a technician who is far more advanced in theory, more confident in his or her abilities and now just requires practical experience. We are able to adapt our manpower situation where we do not have a need to hire additional staff for an eight-week period (and possibly have to lay them off when the student returns to work). We have the benefit of having additional staff for the busy summer months and the new hire can attend school in the fall. This gives us a crop of well-prepared people who can advance quickly to a licensed technician.”
But how are all of the benefits actually applied with the Automotive Service Technician apprenticeship? First and foremost, the training provided is more in-depth and in-school sessions are longer than that of traditional apprenticeships. As such, students are taught by spending 32 weeks partaking in in-school training and then heading to on-the-job experience at one of Ontario’s over 190 Canadian Tire stores, for four weeks. That means that by the time students reach their employer sessions, they will already have knowledge of the field thanks to the combination of theory and practical skills they are taught at Centennial College’s Ashtonbee Campus. This location is the largest transportation training centre in the province and includes tools, real cars and a lab environment. The generic tools on which, students practice are supplied by Canadian Tire to ensure confidence and comfort once they graduate and become employed.