It’s a common question from prospective students and parents, “where are the co-op jobs located?  Are they mainly around the Waterloo area?”  The answer is definitely “no”, they are not just around Waterloo.  But with over 4,000 employers that hire at Waterloo it’s actually a bit hard to start listing off some companies and places.  Many of them are smaller or specialized companies that the general public rarely hears about.  However, there is one interesting resource that starts to give some insight.

Some companies will schedule “information sessions” to give students an overview of their company and career opportunities.  These information sessions are listed on a calendar (click here!).  There you can see a variety of recognizable companies like Apple, Google, ExxonMobil, etc., and a variety of others which you may or may not have seen before.  If you click backwards you can see a variety of other companies in the other months too.  Most information session activity is around the start of a term (Sept/Oct, May/Jun, Jan/Feb) when co-op students are starting to look for their next job.  Not all companies hold “information sessions”; usually just the bigger ones that are hiring a bunch of students.  It’s easier to give the background about a company in one big session, than to explain it over and over again to dozens of interviewees.

For some of the lesser known companies, you can click on their link and see a short description of what they do, and usually a link to their website.  The diversity of companies and jobs in Canada and the U.S. is interesting to ponder.  Overall, it’s at least a partial answer to the question “where do co-op students work?”.