Ndamuso Makelele is stressed out. A refugee from Burundi in her 20s, she is being interviewed for the first time in Canada for a job with a major clothing retail company.
It is her first job interview ever, anywhere.
She is intensely concentrated, barely even blinking, as her prospective employer asks her about her experience and her motivation – not unlike a deer in the headlights of her future.
Asked what she means by “good customer service,” she says she wants to give customers good products for a good price.
“But here we have fixed prices – there is no bargaining in Canada,” the employer responds.
The employer, Meryem Bichri, isn’t trying to be mean, just to give her some of the missing information that Canadians take for granted.
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The interview is just a simulation, of course, part of a two-week job training course given to recent immigrants through the Centre Sociale d’Aide aux Immigrants in Côte-Saint-Paul, to help them prepare for the often-terrifying experience of looking for a job.
They learn to write CVs – which, like interviews, are virtually unknown in some parts of the world. They write cover letters and discover different strategies to search for jobs. Then they sit through the dreaded interview.
“You’ll see, if we have to do this over and over again, it will get better,” says Bichri, who is in reality the employment counsellor leading the workshop. “All the positive you have inside will come out… Interviews are like theatre. You’re playing a role, and so is the employer. Get information on the company you’re applying for. That’s how you seduce the employer.”
Meryem Bichri, a job counsellor at the Centre Social D’Aide Aux Immigrants, plays the role of a potential employer while Miku Ombé, from Burundi, answers questions during a mock job interview.
In the class today are Ndamuso’s three cousins, who all arrived in Canada in December, and Abderahmane Ladraa from Algeria, Wan Xi from China and Alejandra Garcia from Mexico, as well as several others from around the world.
Each chooses an actual job offer from Emploi Québec and is interviewed, getting invaluable lessons on the cut-throat job market – and in turn providing a window into the challenges they face in this new country and culture.
Ladraa, who worked in public health administration in Algeria, is applying for a job as a security guard. It’s a big demotion, but he came to Canada to give his children a better future.
Asked what he feels his weaknesses are, he says, “I don’t really have any.”
Wrong – not knowing your weaknesses is not knowing yourself, Bichri tells him. He might have said his English isn’t very good, but he’s working on it.
Alain Makelele, also from Burundi, is applying to be a hairdresser. When asked how much he expects to earn, he says $20 per hour.
Wrong – if the employer only has $17 an hour to give, he’s just lost the job. Better to answer with a question, Bichri says – what are the working conditions or how are others paid?
Given the opportunity to ask questions of his own, Makelele asks Bichri, now the owner of a beauty salon, whether he could get a couple of weeks of training – to learn how to cut and style straight Canadian hair.
Not good, Bichri tells him afterward. Employers don’t want to have to train people. It costs them money.
Meryem Bichri and Miku Ombé, from Burundi, say goodbye at the end of a course to help immigrants and refugees enter the Montreal job market.
She also gives positive feedback, however.
Mirsada Sukaj, from Albania, is applying for an assistant supervisor position at a bank. Asked how she will deal with changes at the bank, she says with confidence, “I am able to adapt. I started as a teller, then became a bank loan officer. I also changed countries. I can do this. I get things done.”
Bichri was impressed. “You changed jobs and came to Canada. You can’t get more adaptable than that!” she told the class.
“They all think about the barriers – like “my French isn’t good enough,” Bichri tells me after class. “But we’re here to take down the barriers.”
When the workshop is over, Bichri and others at the CSAI will continue to help newcomers – immigrants and refugees, government-assisted or privately sponsored – who might even place cold calls to employers in the “hidden job market” from their office. Roughly 60 per cent of CSAI’s clients find jobs with their help.
“When someone gets the job, it goes straight to my heart,” Bichri says. “It’s a triumph.”
Perhaps the hardest part of CSAI’s job is explaining to some clients that they probably have to change professions, said Lida Aghasi, the director of CSAI.
“We have to explain to them somehow that what they did before is not possible here – but that maybe they have other talents,” Aghasi said. “Coming to Canada is also an opportunity to rethink their career, and we can help them.”
