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OK, my name is Bodo Gospodnetic. I am the co-owner of Dominis Engineering. My partner
is my father, with whom I started the business 27 years ago.
I have hired a lot of newcomers and this has been a mixed experience. Some worked out really
well and some didn’t. Like with everything else, and I don’t think it has anything
to do with the fact that they were newcomers or not, it’s just that some people fit and
some don’t.
There are opportunities for skilled machinists or even junior machinists in this area. There
are a number of industries and I keep in touch with most of the owners or CEOs of machine
shops and manufacturing companies in Ottawa. In fact, I sit on the Advisory Committee for
Algonquin College, which decides on what the kids should be learning. So I get feedback
from everybody that is in the same trade and we all have the same experience. We cannot
find enough skilled people.
A good candidate should have two characteristics. One would be a desire to learn, a positive
attitude towards change because and in the trade, if I might say, is some skill in the
shop, mechanical skills. If these skills are a licensed machinist and that person wants
to come from Europe which is now experiencing a great amount of difficulties, come here,
so much the better. But, the most important thing is to embrace the change, because learning
in a new environment… it’s different, and to have a positive attitude towards learning.
That is the most important two characteristics that I look for in new people.