Targeted recruitment and skills training improve career opportunities
When Mel Garbe, who is of Métis descent, was looking at law firms for a summer student job, the idea of applying at a large firm was intimidating, as it is for many Aboriginal law students.
“There are few Aboriginal lawyers and even fewer practising outside what would be deemed ‘Aboriginal law’ practice,” says Garbe, who attended law school at the University of Calgary.
Without these kinds of role models in a particular firm, Aboriginals are less likely to apply because they feel like the firm isn’t interested in hiring them, he says. This is especially true in business law, the area Garbe is most interested in.
In 2006, the Law Society of Alberta implemented the Aboriginal Law Summer Student Employment program, targeting Aboriginal law students for interviews with top law firms.
“When participating firms call for applications from Aboriginal students specifically, it has the effect of negating the belief present in the minds of Aboriginal students that those firms are not interested in Aboriginal law students,” says Garbe, who applied for and got a summer position with Fraser Milner Casgrain’s (FMC) Calgary office in the program’s inaugural year and is now an articling student with the firm.
FMC, a business law firm, is one of several firms that has participated in the initiative. While firms don’t have to hire any of the students interviewed, FMC hired a second summer student last year who will begin articling in 2009, says Chima Nkemdirim, a partner with the firm.
“The program was spearheaded by one of our former partners,” he says. “The idea was basically to provide another point of access to our summer student program. The law society saw there was a need to encourage Aboriginal students to apply for jobs they might not otherwise apply for.”
It’s common for minority groups to take themselves out of the running for jobs, especially if they don’t see other people in the organization who look like them, says Nkemdirim, who is black.
“Large firms in Canada aren’t very diverse, so people say, ‘There’s no chance I can get in there’ or ‘There’s nobody there who looks like me,’” he says. “It’s important to do what we can to increase diversity in the legal profession overall. We’re very interested in making sure we reflect the community we work in.”
Having a diverse workforce helps organizations better serve the diverse communities in which they work and supporting diverse employees helps organizations retain the best and the brightest talent, says Nkemdirim.
“If we can do things to make people feel that the firm respects their identity and their culture and that they can succeed, they’re more likely to stay which, at the end of the day, helps the bottom line,” he says.
The program has the added benefit of providing role models for other Aboriginal law students, says Garbe.
“As more and more Aboriginals practice in the firms that participate in the program, present and future Aboriginal law students will notice,” he says. “When it becomes commonplace to see Aboriginal lawyers practising in all types of firms, Aboriginal law students will choose to practice in whichever area they are interested in.”
If Aboriginal law students are hesitant to apply for jobs for which they are very well-educated, it is even harder for Aboriginals who lack essential job skills, such as reading, writing and numeracy.
To help these jobseekers prepare for the workforce and find gainful employment, the Aboriginal Community Career Employment Services Society in Vancouver launched the Essential Skills for Aboriginal Futures program in September 2007.
The program teaches nine essential skills needed for work, learning and life: Reading, writing, document use, thinking skills, continuous learning, oral communication, computer skills, numeracy and working with others.
“We basically help urban Aboriginals in metro Vancouver move towards employment,” says Blair Bellerose, director of employment services at the society, which offers a wide range of employment and training services.
For the essential skills program, the society partners with an employer to tailor the program for each intake group to meet the employer’s needs using actual forms and documents from the employer as training tools, says Bellerose.
Employer partners must have the capacity to hire all of the intake participants, but are only required to interview them at the end of the six-week training program, he says.
However, of the roughly 84 participants since the program’s inception, about 69 have been hired, says Bellerose.
BC Ferries, CN Rail, CP Rail, Safeway and B.C. Housing have all been employer partners, with the last two participating in two intakes each.
While the program launched in September 2007, it didn’t receive federal funding until December 2007.
“We were determined to move forward with essential skills because it was something we really believed had value,” says Bellerose. “We were really itching to get the ball rolling and we were pretty confident in our proposal.”
