St Catharines called out on $75 fee to job applicants

A job posting on the city of St Catharines website was raising some eyebrows today, for charging applicants selected for an interview a $75 “assessment fee.”

One of our viewers brought the fee to our attention after seeing it listed on the city’s website. The job is a general labour position paying $22-dollars an hour. The posting read “candidates selected for an interview will be required to pay a $75 dollar assessment fee.”

Chief administrative officer Colin Briggs is calling the fee a mistake, and after our inquiry removed the line from the job posting. “One of our staff made an assumption on our website but we don’t charge an application fee for general labourers, we do charge for firefighters and have had for a number of years but it is at an approved rate to pass on so it was a mistake.” Briggs says there will be general aptitude testing for applicants considered for the job, but they will not be required to pay for it.

Earlier in the day a different city representative suggested to CHCH News that although this was a mistake the city was considering charging a similar assessment fee sometime in the future. But Briggs says that is not the case. “We won’t be.”

“Ever?”

“Correct.”

Briggs says firefighters will remain the only position required to pay for testing during the interview process because of the high costs involved, something that’s standard across most of the province.

The deadline to apply for the position is next Monday, but Briggs says they will leave it up for a couple more days to allow anyone who was deterred by the fee to apply.