Video Conference with Ontario Employers

On April 23, a group of our clients had the opportuity to speak with employers and other organizations from Ontario - in a long-distance video conference organized by the Ontario Chamber of Commerce (OCC) and our office in Guangzhou. The Ontario panel is composed of representatives from two consulting engineering firms (Bantrel, Waydrop), the Professional Engineers Society of Ontario, Bank of Montreal, Centre for Information and Community Services (an immigrant serving organization in Toronto), and a Chinese engineer who himself was an immigrant. Our clients really enjoyed the occasion, as they were able to hear directly from Canadian employers what their needs and expectations were, as well as how they recruited new employees. This opportunity complemented what they have learned from CIIP during the LMI workshop and individual counselling session.

Our clients behaved professionally and asked very relevant questions. The conference ended with an optimism that hopefully would inspire our clients in their immigration journey. We all hope that there will be another chance for such an event, because it is very useful for the immigrants.

Potential Changes to the LMI Workshop

It's been a month since I started in the Guangzhou office. Time flies indeed, as there is only 2/3 of my time left here. By now, I have had a pretty good understanding of the service process. After two learning sessions and many conversations with the team, I am ready to suggest some changes to the model. Since the LMI workshop is the core component of the model, that is the best starting point. Together with the client counsellors, we will create a modified workshop and seek approval from CIIP headquarters for a trial.

An Enriched Framework for the LMI Workshop

We will be adapting Starting Points (see former posting entitled "First Team Learning Session") in framing the LMI workshop. Starting Points is based on the concept of employability dimensions - career exploration, skills enhancement, job search enhancement, job maintenance / growth. Since the CIIP clients are only at the stage of preparation, we will have to adapt these dimensions to suit their situation while keeping the overall principles. The idea is to use the "trip planner" metaphor to create a pre-departure preparation roadmap for the clients. This roadmap will help them research and process the information that can help them better plan for career transition after arrival in Canada. This roadmap will guide the client counsellors in "re-organizing" the existing content and perhaps adding new content of the PowerPoint presentation used in the group session. The end result is for the clients to see the preparation stage from the perspective of "employment readiness".

Managing Change and Transition

Another change to consider is to add a discussion of "managing change and transition". We believe that this addition will help clients process the labour market information in a meaningful manner. This discussion will precede the introduction of the "roadmap" metaphor, so that the clients will have the opportunity of grounding themselves in the process of change brought about by immigration. They will get to review their own values and belief systems, which will affect how they interpret and select the information they will collect.

Envisioning Success

In the end, information becomes more valuable if it helps one in the course of achieving success. We would like to add to the very beginning of the workshop a small component of "envisioning success". Doing an exercise of envisioning success grounds the workshop in a positive context, and helps the clients see challenges and barriers in a positive perspective. This optimistic approach should work well with the last component of the workshop - action planning.

Second Learning Session for CIIP Team (April 9, 2008)

In the 2nd learning session, I focused on two topics, just like in the first session.

• Understanding the BC Labour Market: Selected Resources and Sector Analysis
• Work Skills Profile / Inventory

Understanding the BC Labour Market

I used the BC labour market to illustrate the value of doing sector analysis as a way to help the CIIP clients in seeing more career options based on a broad understanding of sectors. The word "industries" and "sectors" are interchangeably used these days in various publications. "Industries" is the more conventional term (especially in terms of NAICS), but "sectors" have also become popular (particularly due to the Sector Councils). Regardless of which term is used, the idea is that by understanding an industry or sector better, the job seeker will be able to identify a broader range of career or occupational options within the industry. At the same time, knowing more about the industry or sector helps the job seeker appreciate the employer needs from a business development perpsective, instead of simply viewing career options from the job seeker's perspective.

Under the context of sector analysis, I introduced the use of mind mapping to help clients "brainstorm" career or occupational options by freely moving between sectors and occupations. Most immigrants are facing career change or transition challenges, and need to be able to envision their future. Combing the tool of mind mapping with a solid understanding of indsutries/sectors, the immigrants will be opened to many more options than they may think.


Building Work Skills Profile / Inventory

The next level of consideration, once the CIIP client is able to envision more career and occupational options, is about "skills" - a self-understanding of their own skills that may be transferrable from one occupation to another, or from one industry to another. We can encourage the clients to start developing their own "skills inventory", which may include both soft and hard skills.

The tools that CIIP counsellors can refer to include:

(For Soft Skills)

• Employability Skills 2000+ and Innovation Skills Profile (Conference Board of Canada)
• Skills Credentialing Tool (SCT) for Individuals
• General Innovation Skills Aptitude Test (GISAT)

(For Hard Skills)
Occupationally-Specific Essential Skills (HRSDC)

Remarks

By introducing the above topics, I am not suggesting that CIIP client counsellors should conduct full "career exploration" with the immigrants. However, it should be useful for the clients to have a glimpse into an approach they can use to start the process of searching for career options. Many of these clients should probably participate in career exploration programs after they have arrived in Canada - before they would even participate in conventional job search programs.

Observing Individual Sessions

This week, I had the honour of being an "observant participant" in two face-to-face counselling sessions. It was wonderful working alongside a CIIP client counsellor and experienced how a typical individual session was conducted. While both sessions were set up to provide useful career information to the clients, it was obvious that the impact on the clients was more than informational. As immigrants, both couples (it is common for a CIIP client counsellor to meet with the key applicant and the spouse together) were unsure of their future, so they were seeking not just information from the counsellor, but also a sense of support, of validation. At the same time, the tremendous amount of information passed on by the client counsellor needs to be processed properly so that the information actually supports future actions by the client.

Emotional validation

After the first session, I made the observation that sometimes as counsellors, we were so eager to help that we spent more time talking instead of listening. In the case of helping immigrants, we tended to believe that the more information they received (and as early as possible), the more successful they would be. Since there is so much information that immigrants needed to know and process, we ended up spending much of our time simply going through information, forgetting that we are actually dealing with human beings with emotional needs.

In both sessions, I realized that the clients were looking for validation of their thoughts and choices. While it is not the role of the counsellor to make any decision on behalf of the client, it is indeed essential that we acknowledge their courage and determination in making a huge transition. It is about building up their confidence and preparing them in facing the future challenges of immigration.

Information processing

The clients - the immigrants - we serve are accomplished professionals, and are clearly intelligent and determined. For them, it's not so much information that is lacking, but someone to assist them in "understanding" the large quantity of information that any immigrant has to process. Simply giving out one piece of information after another may result in the misleading sense of "knowing" everything, only for the client to find out later that the information is still scattered and too much to digest.

Information becomes more meaningful when it is tied to action - action with a purpose and action that fulfills a goal. Information and goal setting, therefore, intercross and interact. On the one hand, the information presented should be framed in such a way that it can be easily processed. On the other hand, the client should have a set of goals that can drive their effort in obtaining and filtering new information. Without goals and an intention to act, information is no more than passing facts and figures.

Introducing the CIIP China Team

The CIIP China team is composed of 5 people: Harold Goldin (Field Manager), Bunny Wang, Edwin Liang, Sharon Chen (Client Counsellors), and Didi Li (Administrative Assistant). The team has been together since the service began, so I felt a very strong sense of team work and harmonious working relationship. They warmly welcomed me into their team and gave me all the assistance I needed to learn their method and tools. In only one week, I already felt at home working with them.

It must be stressed that the client counsellors need to research, organize, and deliver tons of information to their clients who have different provinces and cities as their destinations. Being far away from Canada, they constantly need to update their resource and knowledge base, relying on their own diligence as well as support from their headquaters team. Although I have more experinece delivering employment service, I must confess that I do not have nearly the breadth of knowledge as the counsellor team here. There is so much I can learn from them. At the same time, I can likely help them fine tune their method and tools by introducing "depth" to their work. Due to the nature of CIIP's service, there is always the need to maintain a delicate balance of breadth and depth.

I look forward to learning more from the team, and getting to know them personally and developing a long-term friendship.

Please meet the team members below :)


















Left to right: Me, Harold, Sharon, Bunny, Edwin