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New Student Employment Initiative

Infrastructure Opportunities Partnership

Ontario's civil engineering industry is currently experiencing challenges when trying to attract new engineering professionals. To address this need, six public infrastructure organizations have partnered to create a student recruitment program with the goal of bringing new graduates into the transportation and infrastructure sector. The program is called the Infrastructure Opportunities Partnership (IOP), and offers undergraduate engineering students summer work opportunities in the civil engineering field.

These opportunities are provided by three way partnerships formed between one owner, one consultant, and one contractor. Each partnership commits to offering three engineering students work during their undergraduate career. Each student spends one 4-month summer work term with each employer on a rotational basis over the course of three years. Students are accepted to the program after their first year of studies and, because there are three partners, they are guaranteed summer work for their entire undergraduate career. During this process, students gain exposure to every type of organization in the public infrastructure field. By exposing these students to the civil engineering industry, more young talent will hopefully be drawn to the field when choosing their future career direction.