Info for Employers
At UAlberta, have a broad conception of the policy community, expanding beyond federal, provincial, and municipal levels to include Indigenous organizations, and the private and non-profit sectors.
We are grateful to our partners who have offered letters of support for in the program proposal phase and we are always interested in engaging with new partners that are interested in connecting with our students or learning more about our program.
There are a variety of ways that University of Alberta alumni or other policy professionals can support the program and engage with our students. We have prepared a handy Practitioner's Guide, which you can download here.
Interested in teaching in the program (which includes contributing class content, teaching as a guest instructor, teaching professional development sessions, and teaching full courses)? Click here to fill out a brief survey: https://forms.gle/v9R6iVkFjippUiBf9
Interested in supervising and mentoring students (which includes hiring current students, hiring future students and new graduates, and mentoring opportunities)? https://forms.gle/wEyGVCSxJoX1AqN76
Supporting the program means helping to develop a new generation of policy professionals in Alberta and provides opportunities to be connected with the policy community here in Edmonton. If you would like to get involved, please contact us.
How can you get involved?
Mentor a student
Mentorship benefits mentors and mentees. It is a great opportunity to share your knowledge and advice, all while developing your communication and coaching skills. We want to support our students through helping them connect with mentors that have experience in the policy field. We welcome mentors with an interest and experience in policy in a variety of settings or levels of government.
Hire a student
Starting in summer 2022, we will be looking to place our students in practicum positions. There are many benefits to hiring a MAPS student. These positions will typically be paid positions that last for about 6 months. As long as the work is paid and is appropriate for a MAPS student, giving them sufficient professional experience, there is some flexibility in the length and dates of the practicum position. If you are a hiring manager and are interested in hiring a student from the MAPS program, please contact our MA Director as soon as possible to express an interest.
Hire a graduate
We are seeking to help our students secure internship positions toward the end of their program or immediately after graduation to help bridge them into full-time employment in the policy field. Our first graduates could be on the employment market as early as December 2021. If you are interested in hiring a soon-to-be or recent graduate from the program, let us know so that we can share the opportunity with students.
Lead a professional development session
We are committed to providing our students with the opportunity to learn from Policy Professionals. If you have expertise in an area that you think could be of benefit to our students, reach out to us with your suggestion for a professional development session. This could range from conflict management to negotiation strategies to policy research methodologies to business communication to many other topics.
Be a guest speaker
If you are interested in sharing about your area of experience or policy expertise in one of our classrooms or at an event, contact us to discuss the possibility. We love to have guest speakers share relevant insights from their work.
Be a course Instructor
If you are interested in teaching a course within the program, please contact our MA Director to discuss the possibility.
Share case studies or policy problems
We want to provide our students with real-world policy problems and case studies, and if you have something you can share with us that might be interesting or useful for our students to research or evaluate, we are interested to hear about it.
Be a Job Shadow Week host
U of A Job Shadow Week matches students, postdoctoral fellows, and alumni with community-based professionals for a 1-4 day workplace visit during Reading Week. Being a job shadow host can be a rewarding experience as it allows you to develop your personal leadership skills, gain supervisory experience, and provide new professionals with the support you had (or wish you had) when you first started working.
Champion the program
Please help spread the word! If you know students that you think might be interested in the program or a policy professional that might like to get involved with the program or hire a student, tell them about us.
If you are interested in learning more about how you can become involved or want to learn more about the program, please contact our MA Program Director at psdirps@ualberta.ca.