A Canadian immigrant employment agency is re-casting the speed-dating model to help skilled newcomers across the country connect with potential employers and circumvent the usual barriers that accompany a resume filled with foreign work experience and education.
Toronto's ACCES Employment Services is hosting a mass networking event at the Toronto Board of Trade today to kick off the national rollout of its trademarked Speed Mentoring program.
The event is expected to include more than 100 newcomers looking for work in Canada and a similar number of executives and managers from 65 different companies. With four different rooms devoted to information technology, sales and marketing, engineering and finance, the event will unfold much like a speed-dating event, with 10 minutes for each pair to chat before a bell signals a move.
"The biggest barrier to getting work in their field is their need to connect with people in their profession," says Allison Pond, executive director of ACCES. "It's amazing when we host these speed mentoring sessions how many employers say, 'Oh my God' -- they can't believe the talent that is coming here."
Today marks the launch of a national program to share the idea across Canada, with organizations in Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal on board.
Skilled newcomers are often simply lumped together under the banner "immigrants," Pond says, and these events are an elegantly simple way to show employers exactly what they could be missing by sticking with the familiar. They've seen vice-presidents order their human resources department to hire a strong candidate immediately, she says, and one bank that sent executives from across Canada to a mentoring event ended up formally interviewing half of the 18 candidates they met.
A report released last month by Community Foundations of Canada revealed that the unemployment rate for recent immigrants to Canada was almost double that of the Canadianborn, and the difference is fourfold among the most highly educated. A Statistics Canada report showed that two-thirds of newcomers with university degrees were underemployed in jobs requiring only a college education or apprenticeship.
A recent University of British Columbia study suggests the barriers go up long before the interview stage. Researchers sent out 6,000 fake resumes in response to 2,000 online job postings, mixing in English-and foreign-sounding names and Canadian or foreign experience. Applicants with anglicized names were 40 per cent more likely to be called for interviews than those with foreign names, and even those with Chinese, Indian or Pakistani names were twice as likely to be called if their resumes included Canadian experience.
It's a conundrum familiar to Jacintha Sri Padmanathan, a Sri Lankan IT professional with 10 years of senior management experience who's been searching for the right job since she arrived in Canada three months ago.
"The biggest challenge is they ask for Canadian experience, especially people who come with management backgrounds," she says. "It is frustrating at times, but we've made a decision to give up everything and come to a new land to try our skills in a better corporate environment, so that's a challenge we need to overcome."
http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Immigrants+search+speed+dating/3902911/story.html#ixzz16wwmW9Jk
http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Immigrants+search+speed+dating/3902911/story.html
Toronto's ACCES Employment Services is hosting a mass networking event at the Toronto Board of Trade today to kick off the national rollout of its trademarked Speed Mentoring program.
The event is expected to include more than 100 newcomers looking for work in Canada and a similar number of executives and managers from 65 different companies. With four different rooms devoted to information technology, sales and marketing, engineering and finance, the event will unfold much like a speed-dating event, with 10 minutes for each pair to chat before a bell signals a move.
"The biggest barrier to getting work in their field is their need to connect with people in their profession," says Allison Pond, executive director of ACCES. "It's amazing when we host these speed mentoring sessions how many employers say, 'Oh my God' -- they can't believe the talent that is coming here."
Today marks the launch of a national program to share the idea across Canada, with organizations in Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal on board.
Skilled newcomers are often simply lumped together under the banner "immigrants," Pond says, and these events are an elegantly simple way to show employers exactly what they could be missing by sticking with the familiar. They've seen vice-presidents order their human resources department to hire a strong candidate immediately, she says, and one bank that sent executives from across Canada to a mentoring event ended up formally interviewing half of the 18 candidates they met.
A report released last month by Community Foundations of Canada revealed that the unemployment rate for recent immigrants to Canada was almost double that of the Canadianborn, and the difference is fourfold among the most highly educated. A Statistics Canada report showed that two-thirds of newcomers with university degrees were underemployed in jobs requiring only a college education or apprenticeship.
A recent University of British Columbia study suggests the barriers go up long before the interview stage. Researchers sent out 6,000 fake resumes in response to 2,000 online job postings, mixing in English-and foreign-sounding names and Canadian or foreign experience. Applicants with anglicized names were 40 per cent more likely to be called for interviews than those with foreign names, and even those with Chinese, Indian or Pakistani names were twice as likely to be called if their resumes included Canadian experience.
It's a conundrum familiar to Jacintha Sri Padmanathan, a Sri Lankan IT professional with 10 years of senior management experience who's been searching for the right job since she arrived in Canada three months ago.
"The biggest challenge is they ask for Canadian experience, especially people who come with management backgrounds," she says. "It is frustrating at times, but we've made a decision to give up everything and come to a new land to try our skills in a better corporate environment, so that's a challenge we need to overcome."
http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Immigrants+search+speed+dating/3902911/story.html#ixzz16wwmW9Jk
http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Immigrants+search+speed+dating/3902911/story.html
