Working with Talent Civic

You are the person we place, not the product we sell. This page sets out how the arrangement actually works: how you are engaged, how and when you get paid, what we do with your details, and what we will never do with them.

How a placement works

1. You get in touch. Send us your details through the form or by email. We read every one.
2. We come back to you within two business days, whether or not we have something for you right now. A no is still an answer, and you should not have to chase us for it.
3. We talk properly. What you do, what you want next, what you will and will not take, your rate expectations, where you can work, and any screening you already hold.
4. We ask before we submit. When a role matches, we tell you the client, the scope, the duration and the rate before your details go anywhere.
5. You interview, and we stay in it. We prepare you for the client's process and we tell you the outcome either way.
6. You start, and we keep in contact. During the assignment we are your route to anything that is not working, and before it ends we start on what comes next.

The three ways you can be engaged

Clients buy these three ways. Here is what each one means for you rather than for them.

Contract

A defined period of work with a known end date. You are engaged for the duration and the arrangement ends when the contract does. Good if you want variety, higher hourly earnings, or you are deliberately working project to project. It carries no permanence, and you should plan for the gap between assignments.

Contract-to-hire

You start on contract, and if it works on both sides you convert to a permanent employee of the client. Good if you want to see the team and the work before committing. Worth knowing: the decision is genuinely mutual, and you are not obliged to convert.

Direct hire

You are hired permanently by the client from day one, on their payroll, their benefits and their terms. We introduce you, help through the process, and step out once you start. This costs you nothing.

How you are engaged and paid

Employment structure

At present we engage contract workers primarily as incorporated contractors, invoicing through their own corporation. For people who are not incorporated and do not want to be, we can look at a T4 contract arrangement instead. Tell us which applies to you early, because it changes the rate conversation and the paperwork.

We are working towards offering T4 employment more broadly, alongside the salary and benefits question that comes with it. When that changes, this page changes with it.

Pay cycle

Contract workers are paid every two weeks. Your first pay period is held back by one cycle, which is a normal arrangement in contract staffing and lets a young company fund payroll responsibly. In practice it means your first payment arrives one cycle later than the steady-state rhythm, and every payment after that is on the regular schedule. We will tell you the exact dates before you start, not after.

If the client pays us late

You are paid on schedule regardless. Our invoicing cycle is our problem, not yours. We do not operate pay-when-paid.

What it costs you

Nothing, ever. We are paid by the client. We do not charge work seekers a fee for placement, for being on our list, or for anything else, and nobody at Talent Civic will ever ask you for money. If somebody claiming to be from Talent Civic asks you for a payment, it is not us. Tell us at [email protected].

Security screening, plainly

A lot of government work requires personnel security screening. Two things are worth knowing before you spend time on it.

First, you cannot apply for a clearance on your own. Screening is sponsored by an organisation that holds a contract with a security requirement. That is how the federal Contract Security Program works, and it is why a clearance is tied to sponsorship rather than to you personally. The authoritative explanation is on the Government of Canada's security requirements page.

Second, timelines vary a great deal depending on the level and on your own history, including time spent outside Canada. Anyone who quotes you a single confident number is guessing. If a role you are interested in needs screening you do not currently hold, we will tell you what level it needs and what the process involves before you commit time to it.

If you already hold screening, tell us the level and roughly when it was granted. It is one of the most useful things you can put in your first message.

Your information

What we collect, what we use it for, who processes it on our behalf and how to get it corrected or deleted is set out in full in our Privacy Policy. The short version:

• We collect what you send us plus what you tell us in conversation.
• We do not sell it, and we do not share it broadly.
• You can ask what we hold, ask us to correct it, or withdraw your consent, at any time, by emailing [email protected].
• Our contact forms are relayed by a third-party service before reaching us. That is named in the Privacy Policy. If you would rather not use it, email us directly.

What we place

Administrative and clerical, program and contract management, IT and technical, human resources and recruiting, finance and accounting, and field and logistics support. Roles sit with government and public-sector clients and with private-sector clients, and the vetting is the same either way.

If your experience is entirely private sector, that is not a barrier. Tell us what you have done and we will tell you honestly whether it maps.