Paving the way... to new jobs
Stephanie O'Hanley
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Brunelle(R): Doling out job search pointers
photo: Marianne McEwen
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Subsidized Côte-des-Neiges job centre helps new arrivals integrate into Montreal work force
When new Quebec immigrants arrive at the Trudeau Airport and head to a Quebec Ministry of Immigration and Cultural Communities office, they're handed information on how to integrate into Quebec society. The resource list includes many non-profit community groups working to help new immigrants learn about Quebec's job market. However, the Côte-des-Neiges Job Search Centre is one of the very few organizations addressing the needs of new English-speaking immigrants with free group sessions, offered four days a week.
"We accept 90 people per year," says Diane Brunelle, the centre's director. "Usually we have a group of six," she says. "It helps them build a network and a network is the best way to job search."
Participants must speak and write English, have arrived in Canada within the past five years and be a Canadian citizen, permanent resident or refugee. The program is subsidized by Emploi-Québec and Brunelle says the Centre can't accept refugee claimants, or anyone without papers.
The centre's sessions cover diploma equivalency, professional orders, regulated professions and competency cards, Quebec's economy and the location of different industries, workers' rights, education possibilities, job search advice and French courses. Written material is handed out each day for people to read in the evening so they can ask questions the next day. "The idea is to give people enough information that by the end of the session they write an action plan, she says.
While people often hear about
jobs that don't require French, they underestimate the importance of learning French, Brunelle says. "Yes, you can find a job, but if you want a career you have to learn French." As well, parents with school-age children need French to communicate with school staff and help their children with homework, she says.As for professional orders, Brunelle says sometimes it's the title and not the task that counts. A medical doctor must join a professional order and qualify as a doctor here in order to work. But for social work, for example, "you can do that job as long as you don't call yourself a social worker," says Brunelle. An engineer can find work doing technical drawings for an engineering firm, and while they're working to pay their fees can become accredited as an engineer here, she says.
"We show people where there are different options so they can decide what's for them, taking into consideration their personal circumstances," Brunelle says. "Sometimes it's details - do you have this, do you have that?" In some countries, for example, accounting is done manually. "We show them which software they should take and where they can take courses," she says.
"We have another service called the job finding club," says Brunelle. The three-week session touches on job-hunting techniques, resumés, cover letters and interview preparation; there are taped mock interview, tips on finding hidden jobs and a phone room to get people calling potential employers. "We're pretty pushy, we kick people in the rear end," she says.
To reach the Côte-des-Neiges Job Search Centre and get your kick in the ass, call 514-733-3026 or visit www.cre.qc.ca.
