Moving to Canada often means adapting your skills to meet the demands of the Canadian labour market, especially in sectors facing chronic shortages. In this article, immigrants share their experiences of how bridge training programs, a.k.a bridging programs, have helped them navigate the transition and secure employment in Canada.
For context, a bridging program helps newcomers bridge the gap between their existing skills and knowledge base from their home country and those needed in Canada. Many are free for newcomers and fully funded by the government.
Cherry Chan took up a bridging program to transition to nursing in Canada before moving from Hong Kong. She signed up with the CARE Centre for Internationally Educated Nurses, which began training her through the PASS (Pre Arrival Support Services) program before her arrival, and the STARS (Support, Training, and Access to Regulated employment Services) program once she landed in Canada. It took Cherry about four months to get her license as a Registered Nurse (RN) in Ontario, and she is now employed at an acute care facility in Toronto while also working as a case manager for CARE.
Akinwunmi Bello moved to Canada from Nigeria in 2022 and signed up for a cybersecurity course (a new field for him) with Sheridan College, as part of a bridging program with COSTI. He is now a security analyst at a district school board in Sault Ste. Marie in northern Ontario, and was only too happy to share how bridging programs help newcomers find work.
Ahmed Amini, who is originally from Iran, is another who is only too happy to explain how bridging programs help newcomers find work in Canada. He signed up for a foundation program at York University. Today, he works as an executive assistant to a managing director at a prestigious company in Toronto.
Cherry, Akinwunmi, and Ahmed participated in a panel discussion with us during the Crossover virtual conference organized by New Canadians TV Network to help incoming and landed immigrant professionals re-establish their careers by bridging the gap between their international qualifications and the Canadian job market.
Bridging programs offer insights into workplace culture and your field in Canada
With most workplaces in Canada being multicultural, workplace communication is crucial to getting along well with your colleagues and doing your job well. Because bridging programs help you find work in Canada, most of them have a workplace communication component as well.
“As nurses in the hospital, we come from different backgrounds, different hospitals, different countries; the way we work differs from person to person,” says Cherry. “It’s really important to have a standardized way to do a proper transfer of accountability as a nurse. Nursing workplace communication can also be different… CARE really helped in this regard and supported my job search, therefore, I was able to quickly get an RN role,” she adds.
In the case of Ahmed, the business communication aspect of his ongoing bridging program gives him another ingredient that helps him thrive at work. “During that course, we learned how to be concise, how to get to the point, and how to communicate with other colleagues,” he says. “It was really important because I don’t think I could learn all that at such a scale in the workplace.”
Akinwunmi agrees, stating, “I benefited from the program in terms of workplace communication,” highlighting the importance of expressing thoughts without unintentionally offending or hurting others’ beliefs.
Also read: Bridge training programs by COSTI for internationally trained individuals in Canada
There’s support throughout the program and beyond
Whether you’re looking to continue in your chosen career path—like Cherry and Ahmed—or you want to pivot like Akinwunmi, bridging programs and the organizations they serve offer excellent support networks that are often crucial to helping you thrive in Canada.
CARE offered Cherry and other participants unlimited one-to-one case management, which means each case manager is paired up with just one client to give them their undivided attention. Case managers support them throughout the nursing licensure process and provide support such as networking connections, webinars, observational job shadowing, and virtual mentoring. “I did a three months critical care certification course here, sponsored by the hospital itself and after that they offered me a full time position here in Toronto,” says Cherry.
“Internationally educated nurses may not have many connections in Canada to begin with… Another thing that really helped me was that the CARE Centre has their list of partnered employers, like long-term care facilities and hospitals.”
Bridge training often includes a networking component
The networking element is another aspect of how bridging programs help newcomers find work, states Ahmed.”It is a combination of knowledge, certifications, good instructors, and connections in bridging programs… that’s what helps us to facilitate the process of finding a job.”
What helped Akinwunmi stay the course was the connections he made with his coursemates. They regularly chatted through a WhatsApp group and encouraged each other when needed. “There were times when people started to give up, they started to miss classes. They felt it wasn’t working, they felt that this cybersecurity stuff was difficult… we told each other not to give up.”
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