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Interviews with well-educated economic immigrants reveal work-search struggles and unmet expectations

Charles Chen and Jen Davies

Note: This article is a short summary of the dissertation Learning experiences and career successes of immigrant professionals in Canada by Jennifer L. Davies (OISE/University of Toronto, 2019).

In the late 1990s, Canada began seeking out highly skilled immigrants and welcoming more racially diverse newcomers. These newcomers often fared poorly in the labour market when they arrived. Large numbers of immigrant professionals were redoing their bachelor’s degrees at the college level, which seemed inefficient both for the economy and the professionals.

Roughly five years ago, Canada’s economic immigration system underwent another significant shift toward a labour market-driven system. As interested parties await data to show whether this was an improvement for the economy and for the newcomers themselves, this article examines a study that looked for the best (and worst) practices in work-search experiences of individuals who arrived under the previous human capital or “potential-focused” system.

Context

Canada admitted 1.1 million immigrants from 2001–2006, which represented two-thirds of that period’s population growth (Chui, Tran, & Maheux, 2007). More than half of them were racialized, which was a major shift for Canada from less than a decade before (Statistics Canada, 2009).

In 2008, 45.8% of all immigrants to Canada were classified as economic immigrants, a majority of them coming through the Federal Skilled Worker Program (Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 2008). Appropriately, 54.7% of immigrants intended to work in a professional field, 14.6% in a managerial field and 25.0% in a technical or skilled field (Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 2008).

Yet newcomers with at least a bachelor’s degree had an unemployment rate that was 3.85 times higher than their Canadian-born peers in 2001, and 2.4 times higher in 2016 (Keung, 2019). Studies from both Ontario and Alberta found that only 10-16% of immigrants had secured employment appropriate to their education and skill level, suggesting that the background-employment mismatch for recent newcomers is a national problem (Salaff & Greve, 2003; Bhandari, Horvath, & To, 2006).

Many newcomers facing in difficulty finding employment are encouraged to pursue Canadian education, since university graduates in Canada have higher employment rates and more full-time jobs than any other group (Chung, 2006). However, an analysis of the 2003 Canadian Workplace and Employee Survey (WES) found that self-initiated training did not affect the career success of immigrants or non-immigrants (Fang, Zikic, & Novicevic, 2009). Employer-sponsored training had a positive effect on non-immigrants’ careers, but not on immigrants’ careers. This is a very significant finding given the wage gap and drop in professional status faced by immigrant professionals. Clearly there are factors affecting their career development beyond education–job matching.

Research

A team of researchers conducted semi-structured interviews between 2009 and 2011 with well-educated professionals who came as economic immigrants to Canada between 1996 and 2006.

The study included 26 men and 26 women from 21 countries of origin, most of whom still had not fully re-established their careers. The challenges they described included finding a fit in Canada’s economy and managing their expectations for initial employment; work-search difficulties such as lacking a professional network; and retraining, which often did not lead to desired employment.

Economy and expectations

Many participants realized in the course of their struggle to find suitable work that their expectations had been shaped by the large, labour-driven economies and labour markets in their countries of origin, which are significantly different from the Canadian labour market. While their education and skills might have been highly sought after in their countries of origin, in Canada, their expertise did not seem to be valued. This flew in the face of their expectations that they would find comparable employment in Canada fairly quickly. For example, one woman described having become a manager only six months after having completed university in her country of origin. She expected that with her 3+ years of managerial experience she would be able to find a similar job in Canada. She chose to pursue a college diploma as a solution to unemployment, which led to her obtaining entry-level employment in her field. Going to college is common advice in employment resource centres. One wonders if she had been advised to pursue higher education instead, like an MBA, what outcome she might have had instead. CDPs ought to refer newcomer professionals to reliable, up-to-date resources like LinkedIn for the likely outcomes of various kinds of re-training programs, to ensure they are able to make well-informed decisions.

Read more on CERIC’s CareerWise website:
How Kingston, Ontario is using diversity and inclusion to tackle labour shortages
Supporting newcomers on their path to career success
How to support clients facing bias in their job search

Some participants arrived expecting that their job applications would garner positive responses, and others seemed to have acquired some false expectations from local employment resource centres about the likelihood of positive responses to their applications. Participants said they expected to receive more responses to their job applications, because in their countries of origin they would have received replies. One participant explained that he was advised at an employment resource centre that if he met about 80% of the qualifications for a position, he should apply. However, even when applying to jobs where he exceeded that threshold, he did not hear back, which surprised him since the job-search “experts” had advised him otherwise. It seems as though career development professionals were not always able to advise immigrant clients on all the nuances of work-search strategy. CDPs ought to ensure, as per the core competencies outlined in the Standards & Guidelines for Career Development Professionals (Canadian Council for Career Development, n.d.), that we are accommodating diversity; collecting, analyzing and using information; and conveying information clearly.

Overqualification/underutilization

The participants often received mixed messages from employers about the value of their credentials, so it was difficult for them to determine their worth in the labour market. A former professor of economics noted that he could not land work as an instructor because he had no PhD, and yet because of his master’s degree, he was often told he was overqualified for other work. Similarly, a physician who was applying for entry-level jobs in health care found that employers struggled to understand why she would be interested in such roles, given her previous experience: “They thought I was either irrelevant or I did something bad back home. It [was] very, very strange to explain.” Career development professionals encourage clients to leverage their transferable skills, but it is not clear whether this is actually helpful in all fields of work. As noted, a core competency outlined in the Standards & Guidelines is to collect, analyze and use information, and it is important that we ourselves know or are able to find industry-relevant resources to share with our newcomer clients, because they often struggled to interest potential employers the way they were choosing to introduce themselves.

Likewise, another participant noted that he had removed his MBA from the resume he used to get the job he had at the time of the study. The participant remarked that he had begun to receive more responses to his applications when he removed his master’s degree. After obtaining permanent employment, he told his supervisor about his MBA, and was informed that he would not have been hired if he had included it on his resume. Ordinarily, a career development professional would probably advise a client to keep a highly desirable credential like an MBA on a resume, but apparently not all MBAs are created equal, with degrees earned outside Canada valued less. This speaks to the need for career development professionals to be aware of biases in hiring processes, and to make clients who are newcomers aware that these biases may impact their job search.

Social justice lens

While only one of the 52 participants of this study identified the belief that they were facing discrimination, it is likely that some human resources departments and hiring managers are biased against immigrants’ credentials and experience. There is an extensive body of research developed since the early 2000s that has demonstrated that everyone possesses implicit or unconscious bias, which affects our preferences and decisions (Agarwal, 2018). While organizations need to put checks in place to reduce the impact of these biases on hiring processes, career development professionals could also provide strategic advice to immigrant professionals on how to re-establish a professional network, “whiten” their resumes and work to decipher the “rules” of a job-search game that does not play fair. To that end, career development programming ought to connect immigrants to relevant networks of established professionals who can help them to navigate their job search.

Charles Chen is a distinguished Professor at OISE and a Canada Research Chair in Life Career Development. Jen Davies has worked as a career and employment counsellor since 2007, when she first noticed the unfairness immigrant professionals experience in the labour market. She is currently the Manager, Career Development Services at the University of Toronto Scarborough.

References

Note: In February 2016, Citizenship and Immigration Canada was renamed Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. References to documents published before then are referenced to “Citizenship and Immigration Canada.”

Agarwal, P. (2018, December 3). Unconscious bias: How it affects us more than we know. Forbes.  Retrieved from forbes.com/sites/pragyaagarwaleurope/2018/12/03/unconscious-bias-how-it-affects-us-more-than-we-know/#57625f276e13

Chui, T., Tran, K., & Maheux, H. (2007). Immigration in Canada: A portrait of the foreign-born population: 2006 census (Catalogue no. 97-577-XIE2006001). Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Minister of Industry.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada. (2008). Facts and figures: Immigration overview: Permanent and temporary residents (Catalogue no. Ci1-8/2008E-PDF), p. 9. Retrieved from publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2009/cic/Ci1-8-2008E.pdf

Bhandari, B. S., Horvath, S., & To, R. (2006). Choices and voices of immigrant men: Re-flections on social integration. Canadian Ethnic Studies, 38(1), 140–148.

Chung, L. (2006). Education and earnings (Catalogue no. 75-001-XIE). Perspectives, June, 5–12. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Statistics Canada.

Canadian Council for Career Development. (n.d). The Canadian Standards & Guidelines for Career Development Practitioners. Retrieved from career-dev-guidelines.org/

Fang, T., Zikic, J., & Novicevic, M. M. (2009). Career success of immigrant professionals: Stock and flow of their career capital. International Journal of Manpower, 30(5), 472–488.

Keung, N. (2019, January 18). Employment gap narrows between university-educated immigrants and Canadian-born counterparts. Toronto Star. Retrieved from thestar.com/news/gta/2019/01/18/employment-gap-narrows-be-tween-university-educated-immigrants-and-canadian-born-counterparts.html

Salaff, J., & Greve, A. (2003). Gendered structural barriers to job attainment for skilled Chinese emigrants in Canada. International Journal of Population Geography, 9, 443–456.

Statistics Canada. (2009). Immigrant population by place of birth and period of immigration (2006 census). Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Minister of Industry. Retrieved from https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2006/dp-pd/hlt/97-557/T404-eng.cfm?Lang=E&T=404&GH=4&GF=1&SC=1&S=1&O=D

Career practitioners need to help clients situate their careers within social realities, while also recognizing their own biases

Taylor Witiw

Career development is a learning activity. In government, post-secondary and private career offices, clients seek guidance and support to learn how to actively create “the life one wants to live and the work one wants to do” (Redekopp, 2017, p. 444). Clients are learners, inside and outside career offices, which ties career development practitioners to adult education (AE). AE is a broad field of scholarship and practice specific to adults and the varied ways they learn. This article will explore how career development is intertwined with AE and highlight why critical adult education (CAE) – scholarship and practice that critiques the way mainstream AE decontextualizes learners and oversimplifies their learning – and issues of social justice are imperative for many clients (Foley, 1999). Finally, it will suggest strategies to transform these sometimes-abstract and theoretical disciplines into career practice.

Waymarkers of adult education in career territory

Practitioners meet with adult clients who are (or sometimes need encouragement and support to be) self-directed; influenced by their experiences; ready to engage their career; addressing immediate life changes; internally motivated; and purposeful. These are all aspects of Knowles’ adult learning theory (Chan, 2010). Practitioners facilitate client learning through reflective conversation, cataloguing strengths, and creating action plans to mitigate barriers and move forward. Thus, practitioner-led workshops, and even one-on-one sessions, are forms of AE.

Further, practitioners often encounter terms like human capital development, competency training, vocational training, continuous or lifelong learning, quality assurance and upskilling. Whether worked into career conversations by the practitioner or curious client, these are also hallmarks of AE (Foley, 1999). The need to understand terminology and guide clients exploring career paths makes AE scholarship relevant and necessary to practitioners.

However, advocates of CAE argue that, while AE typically focuses on institutional courses, educational techniques and one-size solutions, it is important to recognize that significant adult learning happens non-formally, informally and incidentally (Foley, 1999). Practitioners can attest to this: clients learn about their preferences and career steps with the help of their families, communities, co-workers, organizations and, of course, career offices. This is one way in which career development is intertwined with CAE.

Critical adult education and the career practitioner

CAE at its root is about helping learners develop their consciousnesses and understand the contexts they must navigate, which helps them address injustices they may face (Foley, 1990; Freire; 1970; St. Clair, 2004). This highlights a crucial connection between CAE and practitioners, since careers exist within social realities. This may sound lofty or abstract, but it quickly becomes real in scenarios where a client’s barrier isn’t a Lean Six Sigma certificate or software training. Sometimes, clients struggle to lead the lives they are hoping for because, as one young woman said to me, “employers are only hiring men because they say it’s physical work.” A client may not get a job because they don’t have an English-sounding name (Sienkiewicz, 2017) or because the client is a newcomer to Canada or from a minority group (Lightman & Good Gingrich, 2018). This raises questions for practitioners: are these topics you address in a career office? If so, how, and in what depth?

“CAE at its root is about helping learners develop their consciousnesses and understand the contexts they must navigate …”

Practitioners who wish to help diverse clients create the lives and work they hope for must address these topics. Issues of social justice are within the terrain of career development because they are inextricable from the lives of clients trying to build careers. CAE-informed approaches can help practitioners address these realities in their client interactions.

Old territory and new: Where to go from here

First, practitioners must remember that career development is fundamentally a learning process for clients. Practitioners help clients integrate their various non-formal, informal and incidental learning experiences to map their preferred paths. Unfortunately, this may include experiences of discrimination. In my post-secondary institution, newly graduated students often tell me how career and life-management courses influence their thoughts, but they struggle to connect their learnings to other areas of their life. Integration is itself learning, and clients usually need support. While this work is old territory for practitioners, explicitly calling it adult education may offer new vitality and possibilities, like engaging in critical adult education.

Practitioners can use CAE literature to deepen practice. For example, Paulo Freire’s (1970) foundational approach to engaging adults in a process of action and reflection (see Pedagogy of the Oppressed) is a good starting point. For Freire, reflection involves connecting personal experiences to bigger social themes, which could help clients develop their decision-making abilities and, thus, shape their worlds (Choudry, 2015; Puroway, 2016). As St. Clair (2004) puts it, “Giving people the cognitive tools to analyze their life situation allows them to realize how they are oppressed and hopefully encourages them to end the oppressive circumstances” (p. 37). CAE literature offers ideas that can be adapted to enliven career work.

Facilitating critical learning requires practitioners to develop their awareness of where they stand in relation to social realities. Career development literature already features calls for practitioners to address issues of social justice in these ways (Arthur & Collins, 2011; Arthur, Collins, McMahon, & Marshall, 2009). Collins, Arthur and Wong‐Wylie (2010) developed a reflective guide called “cultural auditing” to help practitioners become more self-aware of their biases and position in the social world. Practitioners must also cultivate an awareness of how adults learn from unique intersectional experiences and social realities (such as discrimination). CAE literature and literature addressing intersectionality – interlocking aspects of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender that make up social identities – can be useful to practitioners (Evans, Forney, Guido, Patton, & Renn, 2009). By exploring social realities and identifying their own relative positions, practitioners will be better able to facilitate their clients’ learning.

Practitioners could also find unconventional ways to support clients. This may include providing referrals to support services or social action groups that are working to mitigate specific barriers an individual client is facing. Such work may be needed for the client to create the life they want to live. Practitioners could contact community, social and government service referral lines to create referral lists.

Of course, clients must choose whether they wish to engage in these critical adult education conversations or referrals. CAE is a humanizing process – it is about cultivating a person’s consciousness, decision-making abilities and action-taking capacities. Ultimately, practitioners, as adult educators informed by CAE, must seek to support their clients’ growth in this way, and that begins with respecting each client’s agency.

Taylor Witiw works as a supervisor for the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology’s Advising and Career Development service for prospects, students and alumni. He is currently studying in the University of Alberta’s Master’s in Education Policy Program.

References

Arthur, N., & Collins, S. (2011). Infusing culture in career counseling. Journal of Employment Counseling, 48(4), 147-149.

Arthur, N., Collins, S., McMahon, M., & Marshall, C. (2009). Career practitioners’ views of social justice and barriers for practice. Canadian Journal of Career Development, 8(1), 22-31.

Collins, S., Arthur, N., & Wong‐Wylie, G. (2010). Enhancing reflective practice in multicultural counseling through cultural auditing. Journal of Counseling & Development, 88(3), 340-347.

Chan, S. (2010). Applications of andragogy in multi-disciplined teaching and learning. Journal of adult education, 39(2), 25-35.

Choudry, A. (2015). Learning activism: The intellectual life of contemporary social movements. Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press.

Evans, N. J., Forney, D. S., Guido, F. M., Patton, L. D., & Renn, K. A. (2009). Student development in college: Theory, research, and practice. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Foley, G. (1999). Learning in social action: A contribution to understanding informal education. London, England: Zed Books.

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.

Lightman, N., & Good Gingrich, L. (2018). Measuring economic exclusion for racialized minorities, immigrants and women in Canada: results from 2000 and 2010. Journal of Poverty, 22(5), 398-420.

Puroway, A. W. (2016). Critical advising: A Freirian-inspired approach. NACADA Journal, 36(2), 4-10.

Redekopp, D. E. (2017). Irrational career decision-making: Connecting behavioural economics and career development. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 45(4), 441–450.

Sienkiewicz, A. (2017, January 25). What’s in a name? Your shot at a job according to study. Retrieved from cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/name-job-interview-1.3951513

St.Clair, R. (2004). Teaching with the enemy: Critical adult education in the academy. New Directions for Adult & Continuing Education, (102), 35–43.

Complex ethical scenarios clients and students may present, and considerations for practitioner response

Amy Smith

As the complexity of the world of work increases, so do the possible ethical dilemmas that career development professionals face. The decisions and practices of employers and HR professionals, jobseekers and career practitioners all collide in the ethical landscape of the labour market. Resources such as the Canadian Standards & Guidelines (S&Gs) Code of Ethics, the Canadian Association of Career Educators and Employers’ (CACEE) Competency Framework and provincial career associations’ codes of ethics are essential to a foundation of ethical practice. However, preparing for complex ethical scenarios by reviewing them ahead of time is a proactive way to develop ethical responses and practices and help others do the same (Pawlukewicz & Ondrus, 2013). The following dilemmas provide resources and options for building and enhancing professional ethics competency.

Accommodation in the interview process

Jobseekers with disabilities may need to request accommodation in the hiring process or on the job. For instance, clients who are hard of hearing may have difficulty in group meetings; clients with autism may struggle with phone interviews due to the lack of visual cues that help them interpret meaning; a client with mobility issues may need to ensure they can access the on-site interview. Brendan W. Dawes of Toronto-based Singleton Urquhart Reynolds Vogel LLP, explains the legal concept of duty to accommodate:

“It is a common misconception that an employer’s duty to accommodate only arises after the formation of the employment relationship. In fact, a prospective employer may also have a duty to accommodate a job applicant in the course of the interview and application process. The duty to accommodate is rooted in the protections afforded to all Canadians by human rights legislation, and those protections extend to jobseekers who are denied the opportunity to meaningfully participate in the job application process as a result of a disability.”

According to CACEE’s (n.d.) Competency Framework, ethical practice requires career professionals to maintain “a sound understanding of employment legislation related to the recruitment, on-boarding and integration” of students and clients in the workplace. While career development professionals should respect the boundaries of competency and ensure they do not provide legal advice, they should be prepared to direct clients to human rights legislation and foster client autonomy. Clients who may need accommodations in hiring could:

• Request accommodation when offered an interview. The benefit here is the jobseeker may be better able to engage in the interview process. The downside is they may be refused accommodation, and possibly have the invitation to interview rescinded. If accommodation is refused, they can inform the employer of duty-to-accommodate principles to persuade the employer to reconsider.
• Try to overcome their barrier to access without requesting accommodation. In this scenario, the client does not disclose their disability or become exposed to potential discrimination. If they are not able to pass an interview phase due to barriers associated with a disability, their morale can suffer.

When I encounter situations where a jobseeker is refused accommodation, I inform them that it is possible to take further action through the provincial human rights complaint processes and direct them to those resources.

Juggling multiple offers

The pressure for jobseekers to buy time on a job offer while waiting to hear back from another employer or decide between offers can be daunting. Balancing personal interests with professional integrity and industry reputation is a dilemma that comes up repeatedly.

The Canadian Standards & Guidelines (2014) includes a Code of Ethics that outlines an ethical decision-making model. The first step is identifying whether an ethical dilemma exists. In this scenario, ethics comes into play in employment communication and employment contracts.

If a client has received an offer and needs more time to hear back from another prospective employer, they may wish to disclose their circumstances to the employer. It is never advisable for the client to mislead an employer with false statements, but they can choose what to disclose in asking for more time. An employer may refuse to grant an extension and compel the jobseeker to accept or decline.

A client may consider accepting the offer in hand and then back out if they receive a better offer. An employment contract is a legal document, and career professionals must take caution not to represent themselves as legal advisors. Some occupations are subject to specific provincial or federal regulations; the client should research what recourse an employer could pursue if the candidate breaks the contract. Even if an employer does not pursue legal action, the reputation of the jobseeker could be damaged with that employer and in the professional community. There are many cases where an open and tactful conversation with an employer, even in the case of signed employment contracts, yields no ill will among parties. Coaching a client to act in good faith and maintain sincere and honest communication in this dilemma will help them navigate it with their own sense of integrity.

Resume ‘whitening’

Career development professionals are asked regularly whether people should “Anglicize” or “whiten” their names for jobseeking purposes. The unsettling truth, according to academic research, is that this practice does increase a jobseeker’s chances of getting an interview (Kang, DeCelles, Tilcsik, & Jun, 2016). When asked by a client whether changing their name can help their job search, a career development professional may feel conflicted in disclosing this data. If they do, a client might choose to adopt this approach to increase their responses on applications. The inherent risk is that by obscuring their race or culture, jobseekers are conforming to the discriminatory practices of the job market.

One component of the S&Gs is examining the risks and benefits of alternative actions. Other ways jobseekers sometimes alter their resumes to avoid discrimination are to omit details that indicate racial ties, such as membership or volunteer work with racially or culturally specific organizations or adding interests or activities that fit with the dominant culture (Kang et al., 2016). Based on their personal biases, a career practitioner may be tempted to condemn this practice as unethical and suggest clients connect with employers with good reputations for diverse hiring. Or, they might encourage this practice to help the jobseeker get better results.

The BC Career Development Association’s (BCCDA, 2019) Code of Ethics urges career professionals to “Respect the right of each client to be an individual in all respects, as to personal tastes, moral and social values.” Fostering the client’s individual decision-making in all ethical dilemmas is crucial for career development professionals. They should present options and respective risks and benefits in a non-biased manner that puts the client’s autonomy first.

Delivering service equally, despite unequal barriers

Everyone needs support in their career development, but some individuals face more obstacles than others. Some CDPs might notice they spend more time or give more access to services to some clients based on their apparent need. This might materialize as an extra 30 minutes of appointment time here and there, providing less of a coaching approach and more “hands-on” guidance to some. On the surface, this approach can seem to be equitable – proportional service to need. I began my career as a career development practitioner with that belief, but no longer hold it. This can undermine an individual’s autonomy and give subjective special interest to some clients over others, without allowing them to make decisions about how much support they need. The key to supporting clients in these scenarios is to respect their autonomy.

Helping clients develop their sense of ethical decision-making requires that career development professionals assess and build their own competency in this area. The CACEE Competency Framework provides specific language around how to assess whether you are building, enhancing and mastering your ethics competency. Consulting with other colleagues and keeping engaged within the career development community is an important part of gathering perspectives and resources to ensure your ethics competency is continuously recalibrated.

Amy Smith is a Career Specialist working at the BCIT Student Association in the Greater Vancouver area. She is also a member of the CACEE Competencies Ambassador Team.

References

British Columbia Career Development Association (BCCDA). (2019). Code of ethics. Retrieved from bccda.org/membership/code-of-ethics

CACEE, (n.d.). CACEE Competencies. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/35l9a0v

Canadian Standards & Guidelines for Career Development Practitioners (S&Gs). (2014). Code of ethics. Retrieved from career-dev-guidelines.org//wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Doc-10-CODE-OF-ETHICS1.pdf

Kang, S. K., DeCelles, K. A., Tilcsik, A., & Jun, S. (2016). Whitened Résumés: Race and Self-Presentation in the Labor Market. Administrative Science Quarterly, 61(3), 469–502. doi.org/10.1177/0001839216639577

Pawlukewicz, J., & Ondrus, S. (2013). Ethical Dilemmas: The Use of Applied Scenarios in the Helping Professions. Journal of Social Work Values & Ethics, 10(1), 2–12. Retrieved from https://bit.ly/2sqfy80