The annual  5 km walk will take place this year starting at Thompson Park at 10am for interested North Bay residents. Steps for Life is the primary fundraising event for Threads of Life. 

Families, friends and co-workers and employers will walk to raise awareness about the importance of injury prevention in the workplace and to raise funds for family support programs and services to help victims of workplace tragedy. Last year the walk raised more than $158,000 in cash for family support programs and services.  

Charity of Choice
Threads of Life is the charity of choice for health and safety fundraising and corporate giving involving occupational health and safety events.
 
Memorial Lane
Each community is unique in where the walk takes place and how it takes shape but each walk features a Memorial Lane of victims of workplace tragedy.  

How can you help?
Help support victims of workplace tragedy by joining and walking with the Levert team today! Call Kyle Bourque at 498-6643 or by email at kbourque@levert.ca for more details.

Here are a few things to do as part of your spring checkup.

•  Review your firm’s health and safety policy and program and make adjustments based on things you learned last year.

•  Remind your workers about the main hazards they face and what they can do to stay healthy and injury-free—especially if they were off work for the winter.

•   Ensure that all vehicles and heavy equipment are in working order. Keep damaged vehicles and equipment out of service until repairs are done.

•  Check exhaust systems for leaks. Diesel exhaust harms the lungs and causes cancer.

•  Check all personal protective equipment—including lifelines and lanyards—to ensure that nothing was damaged over the winter.

•  Water and mud are everywhere at this time of year. Make sure your workers have proper footwear to help prevent slips and falls. Good housekeeping helps as well.

•  When dealing with trenches, beware of soil instability at this time of year. Ensure that trenches are properly sloped or shored, or that workers are protected by a trench box.

by Maria Hanson, LiveCareer

http://www.livecareer.com

Fashion changes, and resume styles change, too. If you have solid skills and work experience but your resume isn’t getting any bites, you might need a resume makeover,

1. In: A professional summary at the top of your

This sells you like nothing else on your resume does.

Out: An objective statement at the top of your resume. Nothing says “outdated” like an objective. “Ditch it immediately,” advises Jack Williams, vice president of national sales and recruiting for Staffing Technologies, in Atlanta. Employers don’t care what a potential hire wants to do. “They care whether they can do what the employer needs them to do,” he says.

2. In: Resumes that are easy on the eyes.

“I don’t have time to read through each resume and search for

the important points. They need to jump out at me,” says Mike

Earley, vice president of resource management at MyWire, a

media aggregation site. Earley says hot resumes are organized

with bullet points, not paragraphs, and have enough white

space to look clean and visually interesting.

Out: Resumes that are ‘grey,” with large chunks of unbroken text that require recruiters to slow down. Chances are they won’t take the time.

3. In: A customized resume.

Tailor every resume you send out for the job you are seeking.

Out: A cookie-cutter approach: same resume for every job. These were from the days before home computers, when changing a resume was a really big deal.

4. In: A two-to-three-page resume when you really need the space.

Out: A one-page resume when you really need two or three pages, “One-page resumes are a myth,” says Williams. “No talented person with more than five years experience can fairly summarize their experience in one page.”

5. In: Selling yourself.

The best way to do this, Earley says, is through quantifying your accomplishments. When describing what you did on a job, be sure to include the results. Your accomplishments are key,” says Earley. For instance, if you’re an office manager, don’t just say you “organized a sy5tem to track outside vendors.” Conclude with a real result, like “reduced operating costs by one-third.”

Out: Not being your own best marketing and sales department. “Gone are the days of just listing job titles and responsibilities,” says Leslie Sokol, co-author of “Think Confident, Be Confident.”

6. In: Including links to websites for all companies on your resume and, if possible, a brief description of each company, “Few do this, but it is always well-received,” says Williams. “Hiring managers have an interest in knowing what a company does and what your previous position there had to do with that.”

Out: Assuming hirers know your old company or don’t need to know.

7. In: Including your LinkedIn or other social network address in your resume’s header. Make sure it’s a custom (“vanity”) URL if it’s LinkedIn (these are free).

Out: Not being up-to-date with social networking.

Following these ins and outs will make your resume shine and help you to land your dream job.

The main manual material handling hazards that can lead to an MSD are

•  high force—this includes heavy lifting, lowering, pushing, pulling, and carrying activities

While much of our work relies on these types of movements, MSDs are not inevitable on the job. Once a hazard has been identified, you can put controls in place to reduce or eliminate the risk. For a breakdown of common hazards associated with manual material handling along with their controls, download the Infrastructure Health and Safety Association’s article, “Moving Material Manually” here

Review your activities in relation to this article and consider

The Infrastructure Health and Safety Association also has other products and services—such as trade-specific ergonomic profiles—to assist you in identifying, assessing, and controlling MSD risks. Visit www.ihsa.ca, click on Construction, and then click on Musculoskeletel Disorders under the Key Topics menu.

To read to the Musculoskeletal Disorder Prevention Guideline for Ontario, visit the WSIB website

2-Minute News is the bulletin on workplace health and safety that you can read in two minutes or less! It’s emailed to subscribers in the middle of each month by the Infrastructure Health and Safety Association.

Exposure to cold weather can lead to things such as frostbite and hypothermia. The problem is that trying to stay warm sometimes creates and even bigger hazard: carbon monoxide (CO).

You and your workers are likely aware of the deadly effects of CO. It builds up in your body rather quickly and can cause headaches, breathing problems, unconsciousness, and death.

In construction, the main source of CO is engine exhaust. Gasoline, propane, and diesel engines all release carbon monoxide. Some types of welding also produce it.

At this time of year, heaters are another major source. Workers may set up propane heaters in work areas without taking the same ventilation precautions they are trained to take with tools and equipment. The exhaust from a heater can be just as poisonous as the exhaust from a diesel-powered tool.

To prevent CO from harming the workers on your site,

•   remind everyone about the dangers of CO. Make it the topic of your next safety talk.
• make sure workers know how to ventilate the work area properly.
• review the symptoms of CO poisoning so workers will recognize them early enough to leave the area before permanent damage occurs.

2-Minute News is the bulletin on construction safety you can read in two
minutes or less! It’s emailed to subscribers in the middle of each month
by the Construction Safety Association of Ontario.

 Hard hats, work boots, respirators, safety glasses, and lifelines can all lose their effectiveness over time. That’s why you need to inspect or test your PPE before each use. For example, a strap in your hard hat may have broke without you noticing. If you put the same hard back on the next day and something hits your head, you won’t be fully protected. The only way you’ll know that a strap is broken is if you inspect the hard hat before you use it again.

 You also need to remember that things can happen to your PPE while you aren’t using it. Someone may use your lifeline while you’re at another site. Another crew may come in after hours and accidentally damage the anchor point you have been using. You should never assume PPE is in the same condition in which you left it.

 Remind your workers to check their PPE before each use to make sure it’s capable of doing its job. Regular inspection is the only way to be certain you and your workers are protected.

2-Minute News is the bulletin on construction safety you can read in two
minutes or less! It’s emailed to subscribers in the middle of each month
by the Construction Safety Association of Ontario.

1. Effective Job Interviewing from Both Sides of the Desk
It is gives great advice by looking at both sides of the job interview. My favorite tidbit is, “Your Awesomeness is not self-evident.”

2. 10 Job Search Attitudes that Will Get You More Interviews
Short, but sweet. I think attitude is often an overlooked piece in the job hunt puzzle. My favorite tidbit is, “I will search as if I don’t need a job.”

3. Rethink your Job Search
This reads a bit like marketing material for JobTiger, but is still has good content. My favorite tidbit is, “Tap into job openings that may not have been published.”

4. Leveraging LinkedIn for the Job Search
A great little walkthrough on using LinkedIn for your job search. Favorite tidbit, “When you find a connection, leverage it to find other connections.”

5. 10 Commandements of Job Search
This is the presentation by the Applicant Blog, and it stresses staying positive. “Ignore the fact that your friend, uncle, aunt and even your mother-in-law is unemployed. It’s about you.”

6. Job Search with Social Media & Mobile
This is a great presentation that covers LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter & some mobile apps. “Maxims remain the same … tactics are very different.”

7. Converging Trends Impacting Your Job Search
It covers a lot of ground discussing marketing trends, social media and what networking means today. “Become a content expert … shift, cull & create content”

Posted By:
Samantha Lefebvre- the Sales and Marketing Coordinator at the Levert Corporation located in Sudbury, Ontario. Canada. She can be reached via email at slefebvre@levert.ca or Toll Free 1-800-461-5934 or visit www.levert.ca and start your Sudbury job search now.Levert Personnel Resources Inc is the premier supplier in Northern Ontario for Jobs in Sudbury, North Bay and Timmins.

This resume format allows you to make your information electronically friendly! There are two basic versions of the Electronic Resume:

Plain Text or Rich Text Format: This version will allow you to insert your resume into an e-mail or to cut and paste it into on-line application forms.

Scannable: Employers are using the Electronic Resume format to select prospective candidates through a process that involves scanning all resumes submitted into a resume management system database. They will then run a search of all resumes that use keywords that are related to the position they are recruiting for.

Preparing Your Electronic Resume

In creating your Electronic Resume, you are not developing a different resume. All your information will basically stay the same. What you are doing is changing the format.

You must ensure that your resume will be recognized through the scanning process. To increase you chances for success, consider the following suggestions:

• Use keywords that highlight specific skills, abilities and qualifications (a well-written, well-prepared resume will already contain many of the necessary keywords!)
• Alter your margins, use a maximum of 65 characters per line
• Use a basic font and font size ranging from 10-14 points
• Do not use underlining, italics, script or graphics
• Avoid using columns or charts
• Always list your name at the top, followed by your contact information on a separate line
• Place your name at the top of subsequent pages
• Leave sufficient spacing (avoid crowding information, the characters may run together when scanned)
• Use white paper
• Send an original ink jet or laser copy of your resume rather that a photocopy or faxed version whenever possible
• Do not fold or staple your resume, use paperclips instead

REMEMBER:

• Before you send out your Electronic Resume try e-mailing it to a friend to see how it looks! You want to make sure that the format remains the same once sent electronically.
• Be sure to save your resume in a format that can be read by all word processing programs as not all companies have the same software that you do.

Posted By:
Amanda Wilson

Amanda is the Office Administrator at the Levert Personnel Resources North Bay Branch located at 44B Venture Crescent in North Bay, Ontario. Canada. She can be reached via email at awilson@levert.ca or Toll Free 1-800-461-5934 or visit www.levert.ca and start your job search now.