I just graduated from university in June 2024 and moved to Charlottetown in mid-November to start working at CBC/Radio-Canada. I work at both CBC and Radio-Canada so I’ve moved around a lot in the office. At the moment I mostly work as an associate producer or a digital writer at CBC, and as a reporter for Radio-Canada. I am super busy and learning a lot. In the short time I have been here, I’ve received incredible support from my peers and many of them have taken me under their wing to mentor me.
Being bilingual makes a huge difference in this market. It was my selling point to getting this job as someone who has less experience than other candidates. Since Radio-Canada is a smaller team, it opened up a lot of opportunities and led me to do things I wouldn’t have done in bigger markets. Having that experience on the French side has also helped me get on the schedule in multiple roles at CBC News.
When I was still in school (Carleton University) last year, Sujata Berry of the CBC Temp Project told my group during a session to really look into going into a smaller market if you can. It is a great place to grow and maybe even stay. Small communities also heavily rely on the news, making it even more meaningful.That motivated me to send out an email to Charlottetown asking if I could work for them, along with my resume and a few reasons why I think they should hire me, a sales pitch of some sort. At that time, I had a Temp job in Ottawa and my contract was ending so I searched heavily for a new position. I was interviewed by Radio-Canada and CBC and three weeks later they offered me a job. In the span of a week and a half, I went from Ottawa to Charlottetown even though I had never even entered the Maritimes before, and changed jobs.
My advice to others who are Temping is, I never imagined that sending an email would change my entire life the way it did, but here I am. Send that email! The 10 minutes of your time it takes to write may seem like a lot, but it’s an investment. If you keep looking hard enough something will come your way. All of this is cheesy, but it’s true.
**If you would like to share your Temping experience in a profile or can recommend someone for a profile, please reach out to temp-project@cbc.ca
