Hello Readers,

I’ve been preaching for years the value of interpersonal skills and understanding cultural expectations when immigrants and foreign workers are looking for a job in Canada.  I’ve met people who think that they will get a job solely based on their impressive education and overseas work experience, as it would be in their home country.  They looked at me strange when I helped them put a “Skills and Interests” section on their CV to highlight that they do more than just study, work and sleep.

Back in the day when I used to do career coaching for immigrants I had a 95% success rate of my clients getting a job within 3 months of working with me.  I know what the Canadian employers and HR are looking for, and it is more than hard skills.  See the related article below please
(From the Vancouver Sun):

A revealing study into how Canadian company recruiters deal with applicants with non-English names is full of surprising results. One of them, which has gone virtually unnoticed (even, apparently, by the researchers), is that employers look much more kindly on applications from people with Chinese or South Asian names — if they show they’ve taken part in extra-curricular activities.

Presumably, the data is suggesting that Canadian employers are wary of the stereotypical ethnic Chinese, East-Asian or South Asian student who tries to live up to his or her parents’ expectations by doing little else but work with tutors to try to score high marks on school exams — with no life outside academic success. Employers have traditionally seemed to fear such job applicants have little or no social/life skills. The topic cries out for further exploration.

The statistical revelation about “extra-curricular” activities is buried in an impressive 50-page research report by University of Toronto researchers Philip Oreopoulos and Diane Dechief. It’s titled “Why do some employers prefer to interview Matthew but not Samir?” I wrote a column last week about this inventive research project, funded by Metropolis B.C. The study is based on the researchers sending out thousands of virtually identical resumes to Canadian employers, changing only the names of the applicants from English-sounding to foreign-sounding.
The reference I saw in the report to the crucial issue of extra-curricular activities was one throw-away sentence on page 45.

That’s where the authors wrote that they found company recruiters were more inclined to call back “ethnically-named applicants” if they had added extracurricular activities to their resume. “This occurs only for those with Canadian education and experience.”

I’m wondering why the University of Toronto scholars didn’t follow up this important piece of data. Maybe they will in the future. To their credit, the researchers did add a lengthy exploration of what Canadian employers seem to expect, or fear, regarding various applicants and their English- or French-language proficiency.

(http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2011/10/24/canadian-employers-want-ethnic-applicants-to-have-done-more-than-study/?utm_source=Exacttarget&utm_medium=Communications&utm_term=HRDaily&utm_content=Email&utm_campaign=hrdaily102511 )