Herzing Blog

Looking ahead to your job options after personal support worker training? Still deciding which kind of healthcare setting would best suit your particular preferences and skill set?

PSWs commonly work in clients’ private homes as well as institutional settings like nursing homes, hospitals, and retirement residences. While the work is similar in both environments, there are some unique differences students should be aware of.

In this post, we’ll walk you through the responsibilities, challenges, and rewards of home care vs. institutional care so you can make an informed decision about which setting is best for you.

If you’re ready to dedicate yourself to the rewarding field of health care, you can benefit from a multitude of job opportunities across Manitoba.

The demand for skilled healthcare professionals is so strong, in fact, that the provincial government recently distributed a letter addressed to new graduates assuring them of waiting opportunities.

“Choosing a career in health care is one of the greatest acts of service a person can take, and we are so grateful for the hard work and long hours you’ve put in to get to this point,” the letter reads. “As you prepare to graduate, there will be a job available to you—and to every health care graduate—in our province.”

In this blog, we explore the range of careers available, with a special focus on three occupations that offer particularly strong prospects and take a year or less of training: health care aides, medical laboratory assistants, and medical office assistants.

Keep reading to learn more about the opportunities that exist and how you can take advantage of them.

Over the past few years, telehealth has emerged as a powerful tool for delivering care. This shift toward virtual consultations has demonstrably improved patient access, convenience, and overall satisfaction. However, the rise of telehealth also presents new realities for medical office administrators and assistants (MOAs).

In this post, we delve into the growing influence of telehealth and explore its impact on MOA roles and responsibilities. We examine the evolving skillsets required for success in this dynamic environment and offer strategies to help you navigate the changing healthcare landscape.

Community services and support workers (CSWs) play a very important role in society.

They work directly with vulnerable people who need immediate support, including at-risk youth, survivors of domestic abuse, refugees, and people suffering from addiction and mental health issues.

CSWs connect people with resources, provide counselling, and arrange treatment programs depending on each person's needs.

It can be an incredibly rewarding career path for anyone looking to work with others and help address social issues. Without the support of community service workers, many at-risk people would have nowhere to turn for help. CSWs make a real difference in the community.

In this post, we'll show you eight examples of community services career paths along with descriptions of each position. These are the jobs our own CSW graduates are often hired to fill.

Personal support workers (PSWs) work one-on-one with patients of all ages and walks of life. They play a truly crucial role in their patients’ everyday health and well-being, helping their clients remain as independent as possible for as long as possible.

PSWs work primarily with elderly people, but they may also provide healthcare services to chronically or terminally ill individuals of varying ages. They are an essential link between patients, families, and supervising clinicians (such as nurses or doctors).

Wondering what your PSW career path might look like? We’ve got you covered. Below, we explore the various settings, specializations, and advancement possibilities for personal support workers.

Updated January 2024

With healthcare resources stretched thin and doctors becoming increasingly burdened by administrative tasks, it’s not surprising that the demand for medical office assistants and administrators (MOAs) across Canada has taken off.

MOAs are the front-desk professionals who greet all incoming patients, collect their information, confirm their appointments, and direct them to the correct department or clinician. They also do a lot of work behind the scenes to help the healthcare office run smoothly.

In this post, we explore the increasing importance of and demand for MOAs in the evolving healthcare landscape.

Here’s what you need to know.

To succeed as a medical office administrator, you need to be both highly organized and deeply caring. You must be motivated by a desire to make a positive difference in the lives of patients.

Chantelle Ducolon exemplifies all of these traits. Her dedication and commitment to delivering the best possible educational experience consistently earns her the respect of her students—and recently, it earned her recognition as Herzing College Ottawa’s instructor of the year!

We caught up with Chantelle this week to get her reflections on the honour, the MOA program, and her own career journey.

Here’s her story.

When you think of a community services worker, you might picture someone helping out in shelters, halfway houses, or youth centres. A high school classroom probably doesn’t come to mind.

But that’s because you haven’t met Sarah Laham.

Sarah completed Herzing’s Community Services Worker program with a stellar GPA and fully expected to follow the typical CSW career path. Instead, she landed a position as an educational assistant in an Ottawa high school—and found it was exactly where she was meant to be.

Here’s her story.

As an experienced psychiatric nurse and instructor in Herzing’s Community Support Worker (CSW) program, Kim Melnyk was used to having lots of in-person interactions with students and people in recovery. She wasn’t the biggest fan of technology; she much preferred a more personal touch.

So when COVID came along and forced her to shift to teaching online, she had to make some major adjustments.

Initially, Kim was very much looking forward to a return to class post-pandemic. But when it started to occur, she found that it did not solve the problems she thought it would. Instead, she found herself doing more and more interaction online—and discovering benefits she had never considered before.

We spoke with her recently to learn more about her experience.

Completing your personal support worker (PSW) training was the first step. But now that you’re looking to transition into the workforce, one key hurdle remains: the job interview. Preparing to face a hiring manager can be stressful, but learning about the questions you’ll likely face is a great way to calm your nerves and boost your confidence.

Questions like “why do you want to work here?” and “what are your biggest strengths?” are pretty standard for any position. And you should definitely be prepared for questions like “are you able to work shift work?” and “can you work nights and weekends?” But in this post, we’re focusing on specific PSW job interview questions that relate to what you would do in an actual job situation. Keep reading for sample questions and answers, plus extra tips on how to prepare.