Looking to tap into foreign labour pools? You don’t necessarily have to go very far, the talent may already be in your backyard.
With Canadian unemployment rates hovering at, or near, record lows, labour shortages in many sectors are becoming acute. Yet despite the need for talent, many recent immigrants have difficulty finding employment. In fact, organizations are showing a willingness to recruit overseas, while immigrants who are already here find many employers devalue the experience and education they received outside Canada. Newcomers to the country often find themselves nervously answering the question “Do you have Canadian experience?”
Unfortunately, human resources practitioners are not optimizing this immigrant recruitment opportunity. For starters, they need to formalize recruitment strategies to encompass this source of skilled and experienced employees.
Although Canada has always had a continuous flow of immigration from almost every corner of the world, a shift in the immigration policy in the 1970s changed the face of the country. The policy change opened the door of this great nation to prospective highly skilled immigrants from all over the world who were capable of invaluable contributions to the Canadian economy.
Statistics Canada recently buttressed this view when it reported that highly skilled immigrants are neutralizing the effect of Canadian brain drain to the United States. And the Canadian Association of University Teachers has noted that the country is currently experiencing a “brain gain” as a result of the large number of highly educated immigrants coming to Canada.
With the world becoming a global village, Canada will certainly witness the influx of more highly skilled immigrants than ever before.
The implication of the immigrant skilled labour force for Canadian organizations is that they are in a far better position to meet their recruitment needs than businesses in the U.S., which have not been as open to immigration.
For human resources practitioners, there is an incentive to tapping into the immigrant pool.
The shift from an administrative and supportive role to a bottom-line and competitive edge-driven function demands that all the stops should be pulled out.
Incorporating an immigrant recruitment strategy into the general recruitment plan will enhance the competitiveness of organizations in the recruitment market.
A three-step strategy can be adopted to recruit new or recent immigrants. It is a generic framework, but one that can be structured to fit individual organizational recruitment needs.
Step One: Identify immigrant skill base and design a plan
Identify the immigrant skill base that is relevant to your organization’s recruitment needs. This information can be attained through figures from Statistics Canada, which can provide information on the educational qualification and professional experience of immigrants though it tends to be very general in nature.
Alternatively, companies may wish to do their own footwork by tracking job fair attendees for example. Open job fairs are a good place to meet skilled immigrants. You won’t find people with Canadian MBAs at such fairs, but immigrants with foreign degrees will attend them out of necessity. Organizations can also hold their own open houses to help build a database of immigrants and the skills they possess. This raw classification has a unique advantage over the figures from Statistics Canada because it can be designed specifically to find those skills relevant to an organization’s recruitment needs.
The services of an immigration consultant may also be useful, especially for organizations recruiting for rare skills.
Like all good policies a formal plan is absolutely necessary. Create an immigrant source plan that serves as the “when and where” of this three-step immigrant recruitment strategy. It is a well-known fact that almost all immigrants move into the big cities when they first arrive in Canada in the belief large cities can provide a larger support network and better opportunity. Large cities then should be the focus of any search and are likely to serve as a good source for people who, after getting established in Canada, may be willing to move into less cosmopolitan areas.
Be aware that recruiting from this group will require getting out of the office and relying on face-to-face contact.
The immigrant source plan should be incorporated into the basic recruitment strategies. Job fairs, open houses and advertising can all be approached in a slightly different manner to attract immigrant workers, with job fairs often the best bet for providing in-demand people with required skills.
Step two: Diversity orientation for HR recruiters
Not to suggest that your interview approach is wanting but interview styles should probably change to accommodate the cultural characteristics of candidates. Too often, interviewers interpret the social interaction of candidates through their own cultural lenses.
Not to suggest that your interview approach is wanting but interview styles should probably change to accommodate the cultural characteristics of candidates. Too often, interviewers interpret the social interaction of candidates through their own cultural lenses.
Let’s face it, and this is just one example, some cultures do not approve of eye contact, not the least in a power relationship like that have between an interviewer and a candidate.
Candidates in this example may be interpreted or construed as lacking confidence or assertiveness. The orientation will enable human resources professionals to incorporate a broader perspective in the interview of immigrants. Organizations miss out on great skills because HR practitioners sometimes read the wrong cues from immigrant candidates over the course of an interview. This step is intended to broaden the social aspect of interview techniques by enhancing the reception and interpretation of social cues one might not be aware of.
Step three: Review plan
The final step is basic to every plan. The process should be assessed over a specific period of time depending on the recruitment needs of the organization. Annual reviews are good, however changes to immigration policies or related legislation may necessitate a review earlier than planned.
The final step is basic to every plan. The process should be assessed over a specific period of time depending on the recruitment needs of the organization. Annual reviews are good, however changes to immigration policies or related legislation may necessitate a review earlier than planned.
Reviews measure effectiveness and close any loopholes that might have been overlooked in the implementation of the plan.
Recruitment strategies must keep pace with the changing labour market. Just as the world has become a global market for Canadian products and services, so too organizations treat the world as a global market for talent.
Kunle Akingbola is manager, employee and volunteer resources for The Canadian Red Cross Society. He can be reached at (416) 480-2500.
