#WelcomingEconomy for Refugees Communications Campaign
As Canada continues to welcome Afghan refugees, Ukrainian newcomers, and many other refugees and refugee claimants, the Refugee Jobs Agenda Roundtable is coordinating an employer-led national communications campaign anchored in communicating success stories, exploring the business case for hiring refugees at levels commensurate with their education, and demonstrating the ways in which refugee contributions are critical to thriving communities.
Explore this website for resources and tools to support employers in their refugee hiring and integration needs. If you can’t find the information or resources you need, contact the Roundtable and we will direct you to the relevant organizations.
Refugee Hiring Event
The Refugee Hiring Event is not a career fair. This model is a powerful means of bridging refugee talent with meaningful employment. Compared with traditional job fairs, the Hiring Event model stands out because of four key features: collaboration, employer selection, pre-screening, and an action-oriented emphasis.
Collaboration
The Hiring Event model is unique because it relies on the collective participation and collaboration of employers along with refugee-serving community-based organizations. The key to successful collaboration rests on mutual trust and understanding. The resulting synergies prove to be more effective and impactful than those of a unilateral event.
Further, multi-agency collaboration allows for each organization to harness its skills and contacts in the best way possible. Some organizations were more easily able to reach out to potential candidates, or harness existing relationships with employers, or had the in-house technical or design know-how to produce marketing materials and application platforms. Bringing together the skills and capacities of various organizations helps to bridge the gaps that any one group would have had to face alone.
Employer selection
The recruitment of employers is a collective effort by all Hiring Event stakeholders. Consulted with and approved by agency partners along with the central convenor, employers are selected with a diversity of job postings in mind; for instance, industries and sectors and job levels (entry-level, mid-management, and senior roles). On the employer side, they must satisfy the requirements below:
- Submit open vacancies to make actual “hiring” possible.
- Send interviewers or recruiters who have decision-making authority to ensure that qualified candidates are offered jobs on-site or are flagged for next rounds of interviews.
- Commit to attend the employer preparatory session to understand roles and responsibilities as a participating employer.
- Commit to report back hiring outcomes to the Hiring Event committee with supporting data.
Pre-screening
The pre-screening of applications, though the most labour-intensive aspect of the preparatory phase, is crucial to the success of the Hiring Event model. The thorough review of résumés and applications is beneficial to both candidates and employers. For employers, the pre-screening guarantees that the interviewees will possess the required skill sets. For candidates, the pre-screening significantly boosts the experience by increasing the odds in their favour.
With the pre-screening done, the lead agency partner notifies all agency partners with lists of invited candidates categorized according to the candidates’ registered agency. The agency partners, particularly Employment Counsellors, then reach out to their own clients to schedule customized preparatory sessions. The pre-event sessions were designed to address role-specific requirements to maximize candidates’ chances of success. For candidates who had not registered with an agency partner, the lead agency partner took the lead to plan and organize the preparatory session.
Action-oriented emphasis
The Hiring Event puts action-oriented next steps at its core. Participating employers are committed to assigning staff who are authorized to make hiring decisions on-site. For each interview, employers are asked to clearly communicate with candidates about next steps with a timeline or customized feedback based on interviews. Hiring managers are guided to share with each candidate one of three possible outcomes: a formal offer, an invitation to a second-round interview, or to let the candidate know they will not be continuing in the hiring process but that the manager will provide feedback to help them improve. After the event, employers also report interview outcomes back to the Hiring Event committee.
Greater Moncton Refugee Hiring Event
For Candidates
The City of Moncton, in partnership with the Refugee Jobs Agenda Roundtable and various local and provincial stakeholders, is hosting a unique hiring event for refugees and forcibly displaced persons currently seeking employment in Greater Moncton.
Registrations for the Greater Moncton Hiring Event are now CLOSED.
Here is some media coverage from the day:
Refugees seek jobs, new life in Moncton | TJ.news
Refugees come looking for — and find — opportunities for work via Moncton job fair | CBC News
For Employers
Different from a traditional job fair, the Hiring Event is open to companies that have vacancies and are prepared to offer interviews to pre-screened refugee candidates. The ultimate goal is meaningful employment for candidates by providing either a job offer on the spot, an opportunity for a second interview, or flagging the candidate for inclusion into your hiring process.
Employer registration are now CLOSED. To learn about future Hiring Events, contact us.
For Agencies
If you would like to organize a Refugee Hiring Event, download this guide. It is designed to inform and support municipalities, community agencies, and employers that share an interest in connecting talented refugees with available employment opportunities.
Don’t know where to start? The Roundtable can help. Contact us.
Toronto Refugee Hiring Event
For Candidates
Learn about about the 2022 Toronto Refugee Hiring Event, co-organized by Jumpstart Refugee Talent and World Education Services and with the support of Starbucks, the Tent Partnership for Refugees, the City of Toronto, and multiple other agencies.
For Employers
Different from a traditional job fair, the Hiring Event is open to companies that have vacancies and are prepared to offer interviews to pre-screened refugee candidates. The ultimate goal is meaningful employment for candidates by providing either a job offer on the spot, an opportunity for a second interview, or flagging the candidate for inclusion into your hiring process.
Employer registration is now CLOSED. To learn about future Hiring Events, contact us.
For Agencies
If you would like to reach out to clients or spread the word about the event, the following resources can help:
- Hiring event flier
- Hiring event social media graphic (logos)
- Hiring event social media graphic (w/o logos)
