Internationally-trained immigrants find jobs through many innovative programs such as the Mentoring Partnership and Ontario Bridge Training.The Mentoring Partnership matches internationally trained newcomers with established Canadians in occupations-specific partnerships to learn about the Canadian job market. Partnerships run 24 hours over four months with 75 per cent of mentees reporting finding work in their professional field within 12 months of completing the program.In 2012, Andrew Bakos signed up with The Mentoring Partnership to become a mentor in the engineering field.Since then, he has mentored many internationally-trained engineering professionals from diverse cultural...

After arriving in Canada more than four years ago, marketing professional Olha Shmanko sent out many unsuccessful job applications.She couldn’t land a job in her own field because she either did not have Canadian experience or was over-qualified.Today, she is well-employed as a planning analyst in part thanks to the help of York University’s Bridge Training Program for International Educated Professionals (IEPs). The Ukrainian immigrant was among the graduates at a celebratory event recently.For immigrants like Shmanko, the certificate helps them bridge the gap between the professional skills and experience they obtained in their respective countries, and employability in Canada.“At...

The end of the school year  may seem far off, but employers looking to hire summer students are recruiting already.For high school and post-secondary students both with and without work experience, the whole job hunt process can be daunting. Where do they start? How can they get their applications noticed?Food and beverage processors across Ontario with seasonal businesses hire hundreds of students every summer. Here, Dave Shepherd, Director of Human Resources for Ippolito Fruit and Produce, shares his tips on how to land a great summer job.1. Don’t be shy. Speak up and let people know you’re looking. Many jobs aren’t advertised so start your search by asking friends, family and...

There is a growing body of research (look up Cummins, Cook, Butzkamm, Macaro, Turnbull, O’Cain) that shows that mother tongues scaffold the learning of English and create more robust learning experiences for both public school students and post-secondary.In schools and in post secondary, academic engagement is very important. Students need to be fully engaged in order to learn.Learning, regardless of age, cannot just be a teacher pouring information into a student’s brain; it has to be a robust interchange of thoughts, ideas and knowledge between and among students and teachers within and outside of the classroom where students are as much teachers as they are learners and teachers are...

If you are serious about an immigration application, you will hire counsel to help you avoid innocent mistakes.If you choose to hire someone to help you with your immigration application, it is important to be sure that the person assisting you is competent and accountable.It is a sad fact that there are two kinds of people out there that can harm you and any application you submit to Canadian immigration officials.First, there are people who do not know what they are doing. Many of these people may have good intentions. But, good intentions or not, they can do considerable damage to a good application.Second, there are fraud artists, promising you things that do not exist or for which you...