Why expanding mentorship and networking programs is crucial to helping immigrants overcome barriers

Canada continues to be a magnet for skilled immigrants from around the world, encouraging those with talent to move here, making meaningful contributions to the economy.

Matching skilled newcomers to the right jobs, however, is where Canada underperforms, leading to economically undervalued immigrants and organizations unable to fill critical labour shortages.

Mentoring and networking do help skilled newcomers navigate barriers to economic success across Canada. But for their impact to be truly felt, both services need to be more effective, regulated, and easily accessible, says the Centre for Business Insights on Immigration (CBII), which has shared the following insights on their effectiveness in the Opening the Toolbox report by Signal49 Research:

Sound evaluation would help assess the impact of mentoring and networking

While professional mentorship and networking programs show promise concerning newcomer labour market outcomes, there is currently a lack of comprehensive evaluation, which means their true effectiveness cannot yet be gauged, especially since:

• Mentorship and networking help immigrants overcome key obstacles such as labour market barriers, credential recognition, and earnings gaps.

• Both pathways have immense potential: They connect immigrants with established professionals who provide career guidance, industry insights, and employment opportunities.

• Uptake remains low: Less than 10% of newcomers accessed federally-funded settlement services. Understanding the barriers that prevent people from accessing such services would improve outcomes.

Closing the earnings gaps and making it easier for skilled newcomers to find work could contribute $50 billion to the Canadian economy (2.5 percent of GDP), according to the Royal Bank of Canada.

Direct and indirect impact on the labour market

Networking and mentorship programs help newcomers find better jobs, according to surveys conducted across major Canadian cities.

• Unemployment rates fell from 73 percent to 19 percent over a 12-month period, according to a survey of 1,900 mentees conducted across eight cities. Participants secured jobs that matched their expertise and skill level; 71 percent of them found work in their field post-mentoring, and earnings rose 62 percent over the same period.

• In 2019, participants in the Ottawa Job Match Network Program said the program played a key role in finding work: many obtained well-paid positions in line with their qualifications.

• Three months after their program, participants of the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council (TRIEC) were also 2.5 times more likely to find full-time, permanent jobs with benefits and career advancement opportunities.

Both mentorship and networking also reportedly build skills that indirectly contribute to newcomers performing better in the labour market, such as professional network expansion, improved job search skills, better knowledge of hiring processes, and understanding of Canadian workplace culture.

Greater accessibility across Canada would lead to better outcomes

Removing existing barriers, such as a lack of sufficient mentor awareness of programs, would lead to more active labour market participation.

• Addressing the chronic shortage of mentors in critical sectors such as engineering, architecture, IT, marketing, media, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and insurance would make it easier for skilled newcomers to access mentoring and networking services.

• TRIEC estimated that up to 59,800 skilled immigrants required mentorship, but only between 100 and 2,000 of them were actually matched with a mentor in key cities such as Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, London, and Ottawa.

• In smaller communities, the absence of qualified mentors is compounded by inadequate public transport links: Being far away from a mentor makes it difficult for newcomers to attend in-person programs.

More awareness about the impact of mentoring and networking would remove program biases among newcomers: many come from cultures where such formal relationships are uncommon, while others assume that such services only help junior professionals.

Inclusive programs would lead to better newcomer employment rates

Across Canada, eligibility requirements inadvertently maintained by many mentorship and networking programs tend to exclude many in need of them. Making them more fluid would lead to greater participation and better outcomes, especially since:

• Many programs appear to be geared towards permanent residents, when they could be expanded to temporary workers, international students, and other newcomers.

• Easing the prerequisite language proficiency requirements would expand impact among newcomers who would benefit from mentorship and networking support, but haven’t yet attained the required fluency.

• Many programs also mandate that newcomers who seek mentorship and networking are currently employed in their field: a challenge for those seeking employment, who are looking to transition to in-demand careers, or are working survival jobs.

A shared pool of mentors among organizations would also cut down on the long waiting period that newcomers face before being matched with mentors, especially among smaller communities or professions where mentor availability is limited.

Innovations in mentoring and networking would lead to a better impact

To address accessibility barriers, service providers are working on innovations to connect more newcomers with mentorship and networking programs.

• Virtual mentoring platforms and networking events could draw people from across Canada, instead of focusing on individual communities. Harnessing AI to match potential mentors to mentees also significantly reduces the time taken to evaluate needs.

• Digital services also offer skilled newcomers in rural or smaller communities the opportunity to benefit from mentorship and networking…a service that also greatly helps persons with disabilities, or demanding work/childcare commitments.

• While rolling out digital services, a hybrid model would work best, so that people who have lower language skills, limited digital literacy, or limited access to tech can also benefit from such programs.

Additionally, a service provider in Alberta set up a scheme where mentors were compensated for their time. If rolled out nationwide, such an incentive would encourage more mentors to come forward, reducing the fatigue placed on them individually.