These days I'm an
employment counsellor (the link says most are employed by government, but these days most in Canada are employed by not-for-profit agencies). I work with an agency which specialises in helping newcomers to our city find their way around the labour market and get jobs. Our services are free to anyone who is unemployed and seeking work.
So most of my clients are from other countries (mostly Latin America, the Middle East and China, with some from Eastern Europe, Russia and elsewhere). Today, for instance, I saw a Lithuanian, a Croatian, a Canadian who lived in Israel for ten years, a Chinese man, two Colombians and two Iraqis. Many of them are learning English as a second language, and most of them have very high levels of qualifications and hugely impressive experience... except it's not in Canada. And they know very little about looking for work in Canada, or what a Canadian resume looks like.
What do I do? I find out their needs and their barriers to employment, assess their situation and work together with them on a plan to help them find employment, drawing on my knowledge of community resources (as many of these free as I can find) and my own agency's services to help them move forward. Sometimes they also have personal issues which they need to deal with - especially if they're refugees who have escaped from life-threatening situations (I have clients whose relatives or spouses have been kidnapped or murdered), and I work with them to find ways of dealing with these as well.
And I love my job
Wendy
