Tech Capital Partners Blog

I went to an interesting conference not long ago where David Foote, world-renowned demographics expert and author of Boom Bust & Echo gave a very insightful talk on changing demographics and the effect these changes will have on society’s needs.

I found the discussion particularly relevant as he made a very persuasive case for the need and importance to consider how changing demographics will affect our approach to recruitment over the next decade. Foote states that, as we know boomers today are in their 40s and 50s. We also know that according to Statistics Canada birth rates have been declining steadily for years. Both of these factors combined are good reason to consider what you will need to do to incorporate skilled immigrant talent attraction into your recruitment strategy.

If you would like to incorporate hiring skilled immigrant talent into your talent attraction strategy and aren’t sure where to start, there are some resources available to assist you:

• TRIEC – Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council, established in 2003 by Toronto City Summit Alliance and Maytree, is working to remove the barriers immigrants face when entering the labour market, while at the same time helping organizations benefit from the talents and skills immigrants bring with them to Canada. TRIEC is a collaboration of employers, labour, occupational regulatory bodies, post-secondary institutions, assessment service providers, community organizations, and all three levels of government.TRIEC offers a number of programs and services to both newly settled Canadian’s as well as Employers in the Toronto area to facilitate the settlement of immigrants in employment within the Toronto Region. Training, mentorship, and an immigrant employment loans program are a few services offered or facilitated. hireimmigrants.ca is an excellent resource. It is a TRIEC program that provides employers with the tools needed to better recruit, retain and promote skilled immigrants.
• WRIEN – recognizing the good efforts made by TRIEC, Waterloo Region Immigrant Employment Network was established to support the successful integration of immigrant talent into the workplace within Waterloo Region. A collaboration of employers, government, educators and foreign trained professionals it also offers programs and services to both employers and newcomers to Canada to support the hiring of skilled immigrant professionals through similar training, programs and services as offered by TRIEC.
• Skills International is committed to full and relevant employment for all of Canada’s immigrants. It offers a web-enabled, searchable database of candidate profiles and is dedicated exclusively to profiling the skills of immigrant job seekers in Ontario. The first of its kind in Canada, this tool connects pre-screened, internationally trained individuals with employers who need their skills. Employers have the benefit of knowing that candidates that are involved in Skills International will have worked with a qualified employment advisor on employment preparation.
• World Education Services (WES) provides evaluation services for immigrants who wish to convert their educational credentials from any country in the world into their Canadian equivalents. It describes each certificate, diploma or degree you have earned and states its academic equivalency in Canada. From an Employers perspective, WES evaluation reports mitigate risk, and provide accurate and fair candidate screening.
• COSTI Languages Bureau a partner of WES, offers a full-services communications operation providing professional translation, interpretation, and typesetting services in over 100 languages to individuals, businesses, community based agencies, government departments, educational institutions, and regulatory bodies.

Recognizing Employers that do it well
Canada’s Top 100 Employers award sponsored by MacLean’s Magazine, last year launched the Best Employers for New Canadian’s award. This award recognizes Canadian employers with the best initiatives and programs to assist recent immigrants to Canada. The 2008 winners offer interesting programs to assist new Canadians in making the transition to the Canadian workplace.

For a complete list of the programs and services being funded visit the following - Ontario Training Programs

There are a number of resources available, within the Region and Province, to assist Employers with attracting and retaining skilled immigrant talent into your workforce. Regionally you can also consider taking advantage of The Working Centre, Focus for Ethnic Women and the New Canadian Employment Connections Program to name a few. Hopefully this will give you a snapshot of some of the resources available to you and help get you started.

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