Category: Engage

Home is Palestine but Omar grew up in Lebanon. Like half a million other Palestinians in the same borders, he had refugee status and a limit on what he could do and achieve.

There are nearly 40 professions that Palestinians in Lebanon are legally unable to work in. They can’t own property. They often can’t get work permits or travel permission, or at least not easily. Many live in camps across Lebanon that the United Nations body charged with providing services there says are “characterized by overcrowding, poor housing conditions, unemployment, poverty and lack of access to justice.”

Kids have a way of powering ahead. Omar did, soaking up the opportunities he could find, learning English and studying computer science at the American University of Science and Technology in Beirut and then fullstack development in an intensive program right after undergrad.

He found some good work opportunities in Lebanon, with an international company that ran a bike share app and another food delivery company, but he knew he needed to leave the country to reach his potential and to start building a future. A recent report put the number of Palestinians living in poverty in Lebanon at 93 per cent. That means almost everyone. Lebanese citizens too are struggling amidst a years-long economic and political crisis that saw inflation hit 171% last year.

Omar had a dream about moving to Canada – he doesn’t exactly know why, his twin brother pictured himself in the United Kingdom, but it was Canada for Omar. 

Meanwhile, the team at ChainXY in Vancouver was looking for data extraction developers. The Canadian tech firm curates location data that can help restaurants, retailers, real estate agents and others make good business decisions. An ideal developer to join the team would be someone with a rounded fullstack skillset and fluent with Python, JSON, HTML, C#, and React.

The team learned they might be able to find this skillset while making a big difference in someone’s life: They learned about the opportunity to recruit with TalentLift, searching a global talent pool of displaced job seekers, and gave it a shot.

“ChainXY has always prided itself on the diversity of its team. We value the unique perspective and skills that are brought from people of a diverse background. Hiring someone in refugee circumstances fit with our core values,” said Oszkar Breti, the team’s Chief Revenue Officer. He said it was an easy decision to try this hiring strategy. “We know that the skills and cultural viewpoints would bolster our team and help our business continue to grow.”

Omar’s CV was among the first to come across their desks from TalentLift and ChainXY set up an interview to meet him. The team remembers Omar’s curiosity from that interview – his questions about the company, the team, and the product.

He got the job. 

“The first thing that came into my mind is that I will leave Lebanon and I will get a better life,” Omar said. He would get to grow as a developer – through the work and professional development opportunities with his new team. He would also have a pathway to Canadian citizenship. In Lebanon, where he was born, Omar only ever felt like a foreigner. A chance to get citizenship in Canada “means I will become a normal human.”

He’s already a Vancouverite. Omar landed in a mild Vancouver in early February. This city of mountains over the skyline, oceanside trails, and people from every background is becoming home.

Why should other companies jump in? 

Every team faced with the challenge of finding talent locally can consider displaced peers. 

“This hiring initiative offers a unique chance to help a talented individual in need while simultaneously promoting diversity and inclusion in your work environment,” Oszkar said. It immensely broadens the talent pool to include displaced job seekers. For example, those registered with TalentLift are living in more than 100 countries globally. 

Omar added that refugee situations can lead people to develop, by necessity, wide-ranging skills and experiences. “This can help your company to be more creative, adaptable, and innovative.”

And, there’s the impact. Oszkar’s own family has roots in displacement, having immigrated to Canada when their homes became unsafe. He knows the scale of impact his team is having. 

“Everyone deserves opportunity and if one is in a position to offer it then I’d encourage a person, community, or company to extend it. One opportunity is all that is necessary to make a positive impact in the lives of individuals who have been discriminated against and displaced for being who they are.” – Oszkar Breti, Chief Revenue Officer, ChainXY

Join a community of pioneering hiring teams across Canada. Start hiring with TalentLift.

Aya* is a fullstack developer. She studied communications engineering in undergrad in Syria and launched into front-end programming, and then back-end programming in the few years since, shadowing more senior developers through a bootcamp and in her own family. In the same period, she lived through a war and fled one. Now, she’s in southern Türkiye, and had to leave this new home briefly too after last month’s destructive earthquake. She’s someone who smiles easily, who listens, who you know right away is a lightning-quick thinker.

Some lucky team is going to meet this one and watch her do wonders.

We’re supporting teams across Canada to meet talented job-seekers like Aya. Teams get to bring on needed talent, and extend that job and relocation opportunity to someone in a refugee situation.

It’s a deeply impactful way to hire, and it can’t grow quickly enough. 

There are more than 100 million people living in refugee or displaced situations around the world, and about half of any displaced population are women and girls. They’re often living in countries where they don’t have basic rights. We work with women who can’t open bank accounts, send their kids to school, study, or lawfully work. And yet they find ways to keep going – to keep their skills current, to make a living, to reinvent themselves, sometimes all at once.

Here are just a few of these stars already joining teams and communities across Canada.

Dilruba is a healthcare professional from Afghanistan who told us her favourite thing in Canada is “everything.” She was midway through her nursing studies when she and her family had to leave the country to India for safety. She couldn’t study or work while living as a refugee but held onto the dream that she would one day. Last spring, she joined the team at a long-term care facility in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. Dilruba is working again in her field, in a community that’s in acute need of her talent. 

Sisi graduated with a bachelor’s in nursing in her home country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, before she had to leave for safety to Nigeria. There, she was able to keep working in healthcare but only informally, and without a secure path forward for herself or her career. Her next stop, however, is also St. John’s on Canada’s East Coast where she’ll be a Personal Care Attendant and work towards her Canadian nursing license.

Ranim is a music teacher. There are photos of her with children sitting at keyboards during a group lesson. Another photo shows her with one of her students, both smiling and giving a peace sign. She looks happy and the kids look at home with her. Ranim and her partner taught music together for eight years at their school in Homs, Syria, that they built, before it was ruined by bombing. They and their young son are now in a small town in Canada, and that music school is going to be rebuilt.

M. is a researcher who specialized in anthropology and archaeology in Afghanistan. She taught as an Assistant Professor before the Taliban took power in August 2021 and put an end to careers like hers. M. arrived in Canada in January to begin a new role, as a Research Assistant at McMaster University in Hamilton, under a remarkable initiative led by the university’s Committee on Students and Scholars in Crisis to relocate students and scholars from Afghanistan, Ukraine, and beyond.

These are some incredible women. And there are many other talented folks like them, across all skill sets, in need of opportunity. Start hiring with us and meet them. 

*Name changed for anonymity. 

Join a community of pioneering hiring teams across Canada. Start hiring with TalentLift.

With the support of the Scotiabank ScotiaRISE initiative, TalentLift has built a talent platform for displaced job seekers to self-register, develop job-readiness, and connect to transformative job and relocation opportunities to Canada. Learn more.

M.* is a researcher specialized in anthropology and archaeology in Afghanistan. Until the summer of 2021, she lectured undergraduates at Kabul University as an Assistant Professor. She and other staff and students were part of preserving culturally-significant sites like Gudri Mosque, and uncovering lessons from the past for contemporary urban design. 

She began a master’s program in women and gender studies to better understand the role of women in Afghanistan since the Stone Age, but she had to leave that too, in July 2022, when she crossed into Pakistan to save her life.

A generation of women raised with ambitions in science, education, politics, and social life have watched their country become something unrecognizable since the Taliban took power in August 2021.

The lights went out. Girls can’t go to school past grade six. Women can’t work outside the home nearly without exception. Faces must be covered. Travel alone isn’t allowed. Women who hold onto their rights, or are suspected to want to, can be killed. Last month, someone shot and killed Mursal Nabizada, a female member of Afghanistan’s parliament, in her home in Kabul. 

M. called herself a woman, a feminist, and an academic. But two months after the Taliban took over Afghanistan, M. said, “they destroyed my identity.”

She said that in recent decades, women in Afghanistan could dream. They could become engineers, doctors, professors, and entrepreneurs. They could drive, move freely, and represent their country in government. “That is gone now.”

A group of her peers at McMaster University want to help that dream stay intact.  

M. and her partner arrived in Canada in January, and this week she begins a new role as a Research Assistant at the university. 

The effort to relocate displaced researchers to Hamilton is led by McMaster University’s Committee on Students and Scholars in Crisis. The committee works with faculty in need of talented researchers and the wider university community to raise funds. The university has pledged $800,000 to help students and scholars at risk from Afghanistan, Ukraine, and other countries.

McMaster linked up with members of the Afghan-Canadian community like Marufa Shinwari, with Lisa Middlemiss, a lawyer at Gomberg Dalfen, and with the TalentLift team to support M. This group mapped out her recruitment, relocation, and arrival – a glimpse of the Canadian will to support talented people from Afghanistan and beyond. Our partners at Miles4Migrants unlocked the last leg of the trip, with donated air miles to fly M. and her partner from Pakistan to their new home.

M. becomes the first to arrive at the McMaster University campus under the Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot (EMPP), an immigration program that facilitates access by displaced applicants to Canada’s skilled visa pathways. The pilot opens a critical new mobility solution that complements other options like resettlement and is led by both the federal and provincial governments including the Province of Ontario. 

The McMaster community has a vision to grow these opportunities, through its new initiative to support students and scholars around the world whose lives are interrupted by conflict or persecution. Marufa Shinwari, a PhD student at McMaster and a key part of the network supporting M., has a message for them. “Keep fresh whatever dream or plan you have in your life,” she said. “[Your] journey will start again.”

*Name withheld to protect identity. 

Join a community of pioneering hiring teams across Canada. Start hiring with TalentLift.

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Candidates living in refugee circumstances and seeking a job in Canada can join TalentLift. Employers seeking global talent while engaging their team in something transformative can start hiring.

Canadian immigration fraud is an unfortunately common occurrence. So much so that the Canada government routinely issues warnings and has a whole section on their website on how to avoid fraud. As this is an ongoing issue, we are sharing our top 3 indications that a job or immigration offer may be too good to be true. 

1. A job offer or a visa application that depends on payment to be successful

Scammers are out to make money. One of the most effective strategies they deploy is to make important milestones depend on you paying money before it can move forward. Often, this is coupled with a tight deadline: “You must pay in 3 days or else you will lose the job offer or the visa application will no longer be valid.” 

Legitimate job offers in Canada never depend on payment. After all, the employer is the one looking to pay you for the skills and experience you bring to the table, not the other way around. It is actually illegal in the Province of Ontario for employers and recruiters to charge the job seeker directly. Furthermore, in Canada employers cannot collect their recruitment fees in connection with hiring international workers from the worker themselves. 

While there are legitimate fees associated with immigration and work permit applications, these are almost always due near the end of the visa application process and not at the beginning. And, if the fees are for someone helping you with your immigration application, you should check if they are a licensed representative authorized to charge such fees before paying them as lawyers and consultants must charge fees that are “fair and reasonable.” 

If the recruiter, employer or representative you’re working with is asking you for money before providing a job offer or going through a visa process – this is a big warning sign that you’re being scammed.

2. Non-licensed individuals working on visa applications

In Canada, only licensed individuals are able to charge money for providing immigration legal advice. If someone is helping you with Canadian immigration and charging money for it, you should first make sure that they are properly licensed. Luckily, checking licensing is easy. 

If the person states that they are an immigration consultant, immigration agent, or immigration specialist, you should search for their name on this website: https://college-ic.ca/protecting-the-public/find-an-immigration-consultant. A properly licensed immigration consultant will appear on this website. 

If the person states that they are a lawyer, then they should be licensed in their province or territory. All law societies have a lawyers’ directory, where a properly licensed individual will appear:

• Alberta
• British Columbia
• Manitoba
• New Brunswick
• Newfoundland & Labrador
• Northwest Territories
• Nova Scotia
• Nunavut
• Ontario
• Prince Edward Island
• Quebec
• Saskatchewan
• Yukon

If the person providing advice for money does not appear on any of these lists, then it’s a high indication that they are acting against the law and may be targeting you in a scam attempt.

3. Unofficial-looking documents and unreasonable guarantees

Another indication that you may be a subject to a scam is that the documents you receive look unofficial. Your job offer should be on company letterhead and look professional. This means that text should look uniform and use the same font, usually in 11-14 point font size. The letter should be mostly in black and white with colour reserved for the company logo and in the header/footer (links to websites can appear in blue). 

The content of the job offer letter matters, too: If it contains unreasonable guarantees such as “no tax” or “all expenses paid,” it is worth a second look to see if the offer is legitimate. 

Further, there are never guarantees for immigration as the Canadian government is the one to make the final decisions. So, if you are promised a “guaranteed visa” that will be “100%” successful, you should take that as an obvious red flag – especially if it’s connected to a request for payment to secure that guarantee.

What do I do next?

This list is by no means exhaustive. You may be a victim of a scam or fraud even if you do not have any of the concerns listed above.

If you think you may be a target of a scam, here are a few ways to confirm your instincts:

• Independently verify the job offer or visa details. If your job offer did not come directly from the employer, search for contact information about the employer using Google, and send a simple email asking them to confirm your job offer details.
• Ask a trusted friend or family member who is familiar with Canadian or North American style recruiting to check your job offer or other documents. 
• Check a regulatory body. Using the links above, always check if an immigration lawyer or advisor who is charging fees is licensed to do so. 
• Do a Google search to see if anyone has reported any problems with this company, recruiter or representative.

And, if you are a victim of fraud, you should report this to the authorities: 

• Canada Border Services Agency
• Canada Anti-Fraud Centre

At TalentLift, we work with Canadian employers who have genuine interest in hiring talent from within displaced and refugee populations. We do not charge our candidates any fees, and we are a registered Civil Society Organization licensed to provide legal services through the Law Society of Ontario.

Candidates living in refugee circumstances and seeking a job in Canada can join TalentLift. Employers seeking global talent while engaging their team in something transformative can start hiring.

There are more than 27 million people living in refugee situations worldwide, and one third are living in countries in Africa. 

We got a chance to hear from a few people in the East Africa region about their experience getting a job offer in Canada. Our team was in Nairobi at a meeting organized by the regional UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) team to raise awareness and share good practice on supporting talented folks to access job opportunities in Canada and beyond as a solution to their displacement.

Bahati is a nurse who was living in Kenya as a refugee before our partners at RefugePoint and the Shapiro Foundation supported her to connect with the Glen Haven Manor team in Pictou County, Nova Scotia, where she’s living and working today. She was back in Nairobi too reflecting on her experience. Bahati recalled that for so long, “you’re living day to day, you don’t know what the future is going to be.” She also felt the weight of her identify as a refugee – which changed when she got to Canada. “The minute you step off the plane, you’re not a refugee anymore.”

“I expected to be identified as a refugee. It becomes who you are.” Instead, she found a team who saw her as a colleague first. 

The Bahati I got to know is a nursing professional, a mom, a partner, a leading voice advocating for open skilled visas for displaced talent, warm, funny, and an eager friend to anyone.

Tekle also shared his experience getting a job offer in Canada. He too is a nurse and got a job offer with Chancellor Park in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, another part of the country facing a critical shortage of healthcare staff. TalentLift met Tekle through our partners at UNHCR in the East Africa region and connected him to the Chancellor Park team. His visa process is underway. 

It’s remarkable to hear as part of someone’s personal story the urgent question about everyone else. Tekle said he’s the only one he knows so far who got an opportunity to meet a Canadian hiring team, but “there are thousands of others with skills.” Not only nurses, but countless professionals.

Bahati spoke directly to scaling our work too. To governments, she urged: “Barriers that can be removed, should be removed.” People who are in refugee situations are an equity-deserving group, and we can level the field for them in Canadian skilled immigration by overcoming disadvantages they face that have nothing to do with skills or potential.

“They have been through so much, and they shouldn’t be taken through other things that are unnecessary,” she said. “If there’s any policy we see we can influence to make it easier for them and their families, we should.”

The Canadian Government is listening. It recently announced forthcoming changes to the Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot (EMPP) aimed at greater access. But better is always possible – and TalentLift will keep advocating for ways to deepen equity and scale opportunities. 

We’re also deeping our partnerships in East Africa as we work to ensure people living in all geographies can be visible to Canadian hiring teams. We’re working with partners in Ethiopia and Rwanda now and we invite candidates anywhere to register on our talent platform. 

We need hiring teams right beside us. We need the leadership of Canadian companies to welcome many more talented job-seekers like Bahati and Tekle – to join your team and leave displacement behind.

As Doug Stephens, General Manager Operations, of the MacLeod Group said, “take a leap.” Andrew Walsh, the former CEO of Iress, knows that the ripple effects throughout the business will be “immeasurable.”

 

Join a community of pioneering hiring teams across Canada. Start hiring with TalentLift.

Employers recruiting with TalentLift have a global, diverse, extraordinary talent pool in reach. Our talent platform is a bridge between Canadian hiring teams and talented job seekers living in refugee circumstances globally. 

For a long time, Canada’s skilled visas didn’t work for people living in refugee circumstances no matter how talented they were. Today, that’s changing. Canada has removed barriers like requiring a valid passport, which is impossible for people who can’t get one from a home government like Afghanistan or Syria, and requiring savings in a bank account. These requirements have nothing to do with skills and potential, and have structurally disadvantaged displaced talent. 

With visas opening up, TalentLift and our partners are supporting this talent pool to get visible – and in front of Canada’s hiring teams. 

Who are TalentLift candidates? 

Incredible people, first off. All are job seekers currently living in refugee circumstances and seeking an opportunity to contribute their skills, and to relocate alongside their families somewhere they can put down roots and thrive.  

Our candidates are living in more than 100 countries. The top 10 geographies where TalentLift candidates registered on the talent platform are living as refugees are: Ethiopia, Pakistan, Peru, Nigeria, Iran, India, Turkey, Lebanon, Poland, and Kenya. 

The top 10 countries of origin of candidates are: Afghanistan, Eritrea, Cameroon, Venezuela, Somalia, Syria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ukraine, and Yemen. Their professions span sectors like manufacturing, engineering, tech, healthcare, child care, hospitality, and numerous skilled trades. 

Every day, we and our employer partners meet extraordinary people. Here are just a few of them:

Sisi graduated with a bachelor’s in nursing in her home country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, before she had to leave for safety to Nigeria. There, she was able to keep working in healthcare but only informally, and without a secure path forward for herself or her career. Her next stop, however, is St. John’s on Canada’s East Coast where she’ll be a Personal Care Attendant and work towards her Canadian nursing license. Her skills are needed by almost every community across Canada, and Chancellor Park in St. John’s is the team that met and hired her first. She’ll follow in the steps of another new member of the Chancellor Park team, Dilruba, a healthcare professional originally from Afghanistan who said her favourite thing in Canada is “everything.”

Tahsin learned software engineering only after leaving the country where he was born, Myanmar, when he was a kid. He left because it wasn’t – and still isn’t – safe for people who are Rohingya. His family had to relocate to Indonesia, where folks living as refugees can be barred from basics like opening a bank account. Tahsin learned his computer skills from scratch in Indonesia and took courses he couldn’t officially get credit for to soak up information. Now, he’s working as a Full Stack Developer for Canadian green tech company EnPowered while applying for a skilled visa to Waterloo. In Canada, he’ll have permanent residence and a pathway to obtain his first-ever citizenship. New hires at EnPowered share electricity jokes when they start. We think he gets full points for this: “Renewable Energy? I am A Big Fan.”

How do hiring teams meet candidates? 

Get in touch! Once we know more about your open roles and your team, we’ll shortlist candidates with the skills you need.

Our goal is a seamless recruitment and relocation experience for you and the candidates you hire. TalentLift provides talent search, visa, and relocation services all in house. We know that a seamless experience for hiring teams is part of raising the competitiveness of our candidates.

How do candidates register with TalentLift? 

Candidates living in refugee circumstances anywhere can register their skills and aspirations on TalentLift’s talent platform. Registration on the talent platform is simple and free. Candidates can create a profile in minutes and return anytime to update it. We don’t charge candidates any fees at any time. 

On the talent platform, candidates can: 

• Register a profile to be visible to Canadian employers seeking international talent
• Upload a CV or create one using our CV builder
• Express interest in open job opportunities
• Access upskilling opportunities such as English language courses
• Live chat with the TalentLift team about any questions

How does TalentLift find candidates? 

Often, they find us! But we also invest in finding them by working with some outstanding non-profit organizations in different refugee-hosting countries globally. Among our partners are FOCUS Humanitarian Assistance, HIAS, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Refugee Action Hub (MIT ReACT), Talent Beyond Boundaries, Lifeline Afghanistan, and several UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) country offices. We intentionally pursue partnerships in underserved geographies, which we consider as places hosting populations of concern to UNHCR but representing low levels of humanitarian resettlement to Canada. 

Another thing you should know about TalentLift? 

We never say no to a challenge facing our candidates, and we’ve never met a closed door without finding an open window. No documents? Can’t register without government ID for an IELTS English test? Can’t get permission to travel internally? No internet connection? An exit process? We solve each and every outlandish and ridiculous obstacle facing talented people in displacement whose skills are needed by teams in Canada. 

Our commitment is a seamless recruitment and relocation experience. That’s our contribution to levelling the field, for the teams and candidates who make transformative hiring happen.

Start hiring: https://www.talentlift.ca/engage/start-hiring/

With the support of the Scotiabank ScotiaRISE initiative, TalentLift has built a talent platform for displaced job seekers to self-register, develop job-readiness, and connect to transformative job and relocation opportunities to Canada. Learn more.