Durham Region Child Care Sector Resource Page

The Jobs First Durham (JFD) Child Care Resource Hub provides a centralized job board for those interested in a career in the early education and child care sector in Durham Region and provides just-in-time local labour market information to child care centre operators.  This enables both educators and operators to make data-informed decisions on the next steps for their career or their organization.

Our unique system pulls job postings from more than 50 different job boards.  This means you can avoid visiting multiple websites and scrolling past duplicate job posts without ever missing an opportunity that might be right for you.  Whether you are looking to start a career in child care or seeking to fill child care positions in your business, you will find resources designed to make accessing and using the JFD platform easy and efficient for you!

 

Resources for Future Educators

Use the tools and resources below to explore and start your exciting new Child Care career in the Durham Region.

Career Library – visit this page to learn more about being an Early Childhood Educator.  You will find information on job duties, education, required skills, wages and other valuable information to help you decide whether this is the right career for you.

Career Calculator – use this tool to calculate a personalized return on investment for embarking on a career in child care.  Whether you are just getting started in your career or considering starting a new stage, this tool can support making a data-informed decision about what is right for you.  Just enter your information and select 4214 – Early Childhood Educators & Assistants for your target occupation to get personalized insight into whether this is the right career for you.

Job Map – use this interactive tool to visually search for available child care positions on a map of Durham Region.  With the ability to overlay transit routes, support organizations and other important factors, you’ll never have to wonder where an employer is located or whether you’ll be able to get there again.

Job Board – this comprehensive jobs board includes job posts from more than 50 unique websites, including Job Bank, Monster, Kijiji and many more.  Having everything in one spot makes searching for your next job faster and easier than ever before.  Use the instructions provided below to create and optimize your free JFD account for an exciting career in child care.

Resume Builder – this interactive tool allows you to create an unlimited number of personalized resumes.  Using our professionally designed templates you will be able to customize every aspect of your resume to help secure your next position in child care.  *Note: an account is required to use this tool. 

Create your Child Care-focused account

Creating an account takes less than ten minutes and enables you to have instant access to a personalized dashboard that includes active job postings tailored specially for you.  These quick and easy instructions will guide you through creating and optimizing your account as a future educator in the Durham Region.

Step-by-Step Video Instructions

Learn More About  A Career in Early Learning and Child Care

Resources for Child Care Centre’s

As a business owner or manager, JFD offers important insights into the child care labour force in Durham Region.  Not only does our jobs board offer additional exposure for your postings with no cost or effort on your part, but our reporting tools allow you to monitor wage, skill and other trends to support your strategic planning related to workforce development.  JFD is the only place you can access labour market information that is specific to the Durham Region because our information is extracted directly from job postings on over 50 unique websites.   This hyperlocal information is pivotal to ensuring you understand the labour market in Durham.

Labour Market Insights Report – visit this page to find the most recent salary, skill and other local labour market information.  This feature allows you to review both job search and job demand data specifically for the Durham Region and is sortable by geography, occupation,  or sector to suit your individual needs.

Labour Force Survey Report – this resource provides the most up-to-date statistics on employment, unemployment, labour force participation, and population, including analysis of year-over-year and month-over-month trends.

Talent Map Tool – visit this page to use our heat mapping tool to see where the talent you’re seeking can be found.

Create Your Account

Creating an account takes less than ten minutes and enables you to have instant access to a personalized dashboard of the information most important to you.  These quick and easy instructions will guide you through creating and optimizing your account as the operator of a child care centre in the Durham Region.

Posting Your Employment Opportunities on JFD

If your organization posts their job opportunities on one of the websites indexed by JFD, your posting will automatically be imported into our system within hours of your posting going live through your chosen job board.  A full list of websites that are indexed can be found here.

If your recruitment process does not include posting your available positions to one of the websites that are indexed by JFD, simply visit this link and complete the posting form.  There is no cost to you for posting and an account is not required.  Your job post will appear on the Durham College Community and Employment Services job board and will be imported to JFD automatically within hours of posting.

Alternatively, you can contact any Employment Ontario (EO) service provider and work with them to have your job posted.  A full list of EO service providers and contact information can be found here.

Best Practices for Job Postings

Keeping the important tips provided below in mind while preparing and posting your employment opportunities will help ensure that future educators can more easily find your posting.  This will increase your response rates and help you reach your staffing goals more quickly and efficiently.  These tips also help us ensure that the labour market information available to you through JFD is as accurate as possible.

  • Job Title – keep the title short, simple and focused on the keywords commonly associated with the role.  The career explorer tool offers a number of possible titles for any given role, use it as a resource.
  • Duties – accurately describe the responsibilities of the role. If it’s a supervisory role that requires 80% of the time to be spent on admin work and 20% of the time in a classroom, tell them that. This will ensure you’re engaging with candidates who are more likely to enjoy their day-to-day responsibilities as a member of your team.
  • Compensation – be clear and concise in communicating the remuneration for the role.  If it is salaried, include the amount and specify that it’s annual.  If the position is wage-based, then be concise in spelling out the hourly wage and the anticipated number of hours per week.   
  • Benefits – ensure that you are using terminology that is widely used and understood.
  • Location – this is important for job seekers to understand where they will be expected to work and can help them determine whether they’ll consistently and reliably be able to attend work.  Ensure this information is clear within your job post to enable job seekers to find your location easily on our jobs map, providing a further opportunity for engagement with future educators.  Additionally, it supports our ability to provide geographic information in our labour market information reports. 
  • Skills – use common language when expressing the required skills in your posting.  The skills demand report can be used as a resource to determine how best to express commonly requested skills. 
  • Duration – using the terms “permanent,” “temporary,” or “contract” will increase awareness of the role for future educators and will enable proper tracking for our data and report tools.   
  • Type – be explicit about using the terms “full time” and “part time” as this will ensure clarity for future educators and support data collection.

 

  • Things to Avoid:
    • Including special characters in your title. Avoiding this makes your post easier to read and more likely to match the search queries from job seekers.
    • Including phrases like “Guru” and “Superstar” that people are less likely to search for.  If you are hiring a “Early Childhood Educator”, call it that.
    • Using internal titles that don’t accurately describe the job.  Job seekers may misunderstand abbreviations or acronyms. “Registered Early Childhood Educator” is much clearer to applicants than “RECE II”
    • Using large blocks of text. Instead, opt for bulleted lists whenever possible.