Making Friendships Across Cultures at Work
Why we need work friends It is important to have friendships at work. According to Vantage Circle, workplace loneliness affects business, relationships and well-being[1]. In 2023, the WHO and US Surgeon General declared a global loneliness epidemic, and compared the...
Anxiety Is Not An Emotion!
Did you know that anxiety is not an emotion? What is anxiety? You may believe you “feel” anxious but in reality, you are sensing anxiety. Anxiety is a physiological reaction from the fight/flight function of the vagus nerve. It triggers the adrenals (top of kidneys)...
Career Trauma? What’s That?
"An unhealed person can find offense in pretty much anything someone does. A healed person understands that the actions of others have nothing to do with them. Each day you get to decide which one you will be" ~ Unknown "If you continue to carry bricks from your past,...
Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: Some clarifications for newcomers to Canada
Many immigrant employees are confused by the concept of sexual harassment. Here are a few incidents to illustrate. Can you tell which of these incidents constitutes sexual harassment and which are cultural misunderstandings? A man tells his female co-worker that her...
The Future of Work II: Is There a Relationship Between Industry 4.0 and Emotional Labour?
Introduction People, production and profit. These are the three primary gears in the machine that Industry 4.0 claims to revolutionize with the most significant disruptor to the future of work since the first industrial revolution. [bctt tweet="Through artificial...
How to Find Work in the Banking Industry in Canada With Churchilean Andrada
Churchilean Andrada moved to Canada from the Philippines 1.5 years back, when her husband sponsored her shortly after their marriage. Church, as she likes to call herself, had to leave her career in the banking industry to make the move. After 10 years of working in...
Why You Should Adapt, Not Adopt
“Overadjusting” may not be good for your career! According to podcast interviewer, Christian Hoferle (#thecultureguy), during his time in Tokyo, cultural trainer Russell Harlow was charged with facilitating a change process among his Japanese team. He was surprised...
In A Nutshell, What’s The Future Of Work And Why Should I Care?
(Part 1: How people and machines came to be in relationship together and the Gig economy) It is not hard to see that employment is changing rapidly and shows high volatility worldwide. Many employees feel like they are on an employment roller coaster that takes off...
Top Secrets to Communicating with Canadians
Every culture has its preferred ways of communicating. Each culture also gives special clues to its members which let them know that they are on the same page. The shared understanding which arises from comprehending these clues is the key to successful communication....
Why You Need A Mentor And How To Get One
As a newcomer to Canada, finding a job is a priority for you.However, you don’t just want a survival job; you want to shape your career here. Having a mentor to guide you on this seemingly daunting journey to establishing your career in Canada is crucial. Read on to...
3 Stages To Results: Managing Your Emotions Through Career Transition
How do I look for work when I feel SO terrible? If you have a career history but are transitioning to a new job, career or industry, you are probably worried about the answers to these questions. What if I’m unemployable? Who would consider hiring me? Am I up to date...
Typical problems immigrants face in their first jobs and how to leverage them
You're hired!After all that frustration you can finally celebrate! But wait, don’t get too comfortable just yet…When you are new to the country, getting any job is such a huge milestone that almost everyone breathes a sigh of relief and expects that all will be well....
What to do if your employees don’t speak English: An employer success story
Featuring : The Filter Shop and CCI-LEX Let’s say you have a job that needs to be filled… The job is easy to learn and do well but difficult to hire for. People don’t stay or have the necessary work ethic and orientation to be good team members. How do you find...
How to diversify your network!
“A stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet” Anonymous Most people find networking events stressful. The idea of spending an afternoon after work or evening with a bunch of strangers trying to make awkward conversation doesn’t seem like most people’s idea of a good...
Using your natural connections to get into a career: Barry’s story
Many newcomers get their first job through connections. For Barrie Latter, a family connection in Canada was able to find him a job opportunity before he planned to immigrate. He is a firm believer in using your connections to get to find a job higher up in the...
How Arnold became a master networker and rocked his career!
Let me tell you about Arnold D’Souza and how he built a meaningful and well-paying job in Canada by having a clear career path and networking. Arnold moved to Canada 8 years ago, from Dubai, where he handled the logistics for 40 countries and 27 distributors for...
Your transferable skills: Finding and using them for work
Are you confused about this talk of “soft skills” for getting a job? Do you wonder what it means to have “transferable” skills? Do you want to have a fast way to find out what your soft, transferable - or whatever employers want skills - are and then use them to get a...
Can a construction company be intentionally inclusive? Jen-Col says “Yes!”
Jen-Col is serious about building a better future. When you first walk into Jen-Col Construction (Building a better future), I guarantee you will be impressed. The building is a combination of new and old with repurposed recycled wood in different shades throughout...
How Emanuel did it: 3 strategies for getting into an industry
Emanuel was a Masters in Economics graduate and needed to find work. He found that the skills he had in math were useful for supply chain management so he decided to investigate the industry as a possible career route. To avoid being stuck in a survival level job, he...
“If it ain’t broke” – Workplace lessons for the entitled
Here’s a workplace attitude comparison I think you will find interesting... You might remember when social media evangelist Jill Rowley’s employment termination at Oracle made the headlines. Rowley was portrayed as a talented creative whose free spirit did not fit the...
Andrew’s story: Finding work in chemical manufacturing
Let me tell you about how I first met Andrew Zheng... I was a speaker at the Chinese Students and Scholars Association gala (CSSA) and met Andrew during the networking portion of the evening. He impressed me by explaining how he landed a job in his industry right...
How Sandra cracked the code on “Canadian Experience”
"A career is a journey with stops along the way, not a destination." It’s a classic line that newcomers hear when trying to find work in Canada: “We are looking for someone with ‘Canadian experience.’” And while this isn’t necessarily an invalid point,...
How to make yourself irresistible in a job interview – part four: 5 gestures to create success
You know what they say about body language... The way we position ourselves as we share a message comprises the bulk of the communication that gets through to the audience. Estimates range anywhere from 55% to 90% (and the debate among communication experts will...
How to make yourself irresistible in a job interview – part three: 4 (More) strategies that help people know, like, and trust you
The job interview... It’s that ominous space that separates your accepted job application and the job offer. And it doesn’t depend - at least not entirely - on your technical skill. In the end, whether or not you land the job offer you’re hoping for depends on how...
How to make yourself irresistible in a job interview – part two: 4 Strategies that help people know, like, and trust you
Make no mistake... You can show you have all the technical skill in the world, but if the interviewer doesn’t leave that meeting feeling they know you, like you, and can trust you, there’s a good chance you’ll miss your opportunity. In part one of this series “How to...
How to make yourself irresistible in a job interview – part one: The 3 crucial ways to prepare
Ever wonder how some people have the uncanny ability to get people to know, like, and trust them within just minutes of meeting? Academics call it the “KLT” factor and it measures how much a person feels they “Know, Like, and Trust” you. Notice that KLT rests entirely...
How immigration categories work in Canada (and why you should care)
Ever wondered who comes to Canada, how they are classified, and how many people are actually accepted? If not, maybe this will persuade you to get curious about immigration categories: by 2030 immigration is projected to account for all - not just some, but ALL - of...
Live your work life as if you could die tomorrow
Recently I have been reminded of the importance of death... When we think about our own death and what might be our legacy after we have left this world, it can have a big impact on how we live daily. It has a lot of weight on how we treat people at work, in our...
Ndumiso’s Swaziland to Canada story: Advancing in the telecommunications workplace
If you took our Canadian Workplace certificate course, you might remember an engaging interview video with Ndumiso. In the video he explained his creative way of finding work in his chosen field of telecommunications. After moving to Canada from Swaziland, Ndumiso...
Turning Twitter into a giant job board
Not one who needs to use a lot of words in a day? You probably find that Twitter is a favourite social media space and it turns out that many employers feel the same way. Hundreds of thousands of jobs are posted by employers using a mere 140 characters everyday, and...
Gerard Keledjian: An immigrant success story
About four years ago I migrated to Canada from Dubai, UAE, bringing with me over 15 years of experience and the dream of starting an exciting, new chapter in my life. However, like most new immigrants, I struggled to find my footing. In my search for solutions, I made...
Foreign credential recognition in Alberta: A few explanations and resources
One of the most common settlement difficulties faced by newcomers in Canada is credential recognition. Because countries differ in educational standards, what might have been a Bachelor of Engineering in one country may be considered a two-year equivalency in...
Is online learning for you? Let’s find out
Online learning isn’t for every professional. It might work for you, let's find out. For me, I have been taking and creating online courses for several years now, and it occurred to me that I should look at the characteristics of successful online learners to see if...
Getting through to your boss
Have you experienced any of these issues with your boss? Your boss tells you to do something that is completely the opposite, or in contradiction to what he/she told you to do earlier Your boss forgets what he/she asks, and repeats things you already know, or doesn’t...
“We’re going to have to let you go” – Words the indispensable NEVER have to hear
In 2015, Gartner, an IT research and consulting firm, estimated that one third of all jobs will be replaced by software, robots, and smart machines by 2025 [1]. The World Economic Forum is predicting a “Fourth Industrial Revolution” to take place between 2015 and...
5 Disastrously common meeting presentation mistakes & what you can learn from them
For many of us, just the mention of the word “meeting” makes us roll our eyes and groan. We’ve all had the misfortune of sitting through yet another bad presentation and have cursed the heavens for losing an hour (or longer) of our lives to boredom and frustration....
Want more confidence? Try these steps!
Have you ever found yourself watching someone else participate easily in a conversation with a stranger and wondered, “How did he/she do that?” Or perhaps you watched a presenter put forth a series of ideas with brilliant logic, a great sense of humour, or...
Virtual introductions: The “why” and “how”
When you are anxiously looking for work or trying to find a client, where do your thoughts go? After reading this post, hopefully they will zero in on one tiny, often overlooked but immensely powerful practice: the virtual introduction. The four categories of people I...
The power of a true vacation, and why you should harness it
“You can’t do a good job if a job is all you do.” - Artifact Uprising “A vacation is over when you begin to yearn for your work.” - Morris Fishbein I have a confession to make. Since I started my business 10 years ago I have only taken one vacation – ONE vacation, ONE...
Virtual networking part three: Using Twitter to network your way into a job
Not one who needs to use a lot of words in a day? Twitter might be your new favorite social media space. Each post, or Tweet, is limited to a mere 140 characters, enabling you to share your message with a large audience, knowing that a quick glance is all the reader...
Networking tips and tricks for wallflowers: What to do before, during, and after an event
Intimidating as they may be for you, networking events are venues that invent opportunities. How? By connecting you with the people who will significantly impact your professional future. This post summarizes a more in-depth Shift article you can access here. In this...
Virtual networking part one: Using LinkedIn to find work and build your professional network
"The opposite of networking is not-working." - Anonymous Did you know that often managers and recruiters are looking at your social media profiles BEFORE they look at your resume? The truth is that your network is what will continuously feed you work – regardless of...
Virtual networking part two: Using Facebook for getting work and building your professional network
“Are you on Facebook and LinkedIn?” or “Do you have a Twitter handle?” – these are questions you have probably been asked by someone wanting to “connect” with you, and more and more employers are asking - and expecting – that their potential candidates will answer an...
How to get the most out of a bad job experience: 5 mistakes to avoid
It was one of the worst jobs I ever had... The staff was cliquey and always gossiping and backbiting about the others, the boss was incompetent and sleazy, and the pay was crappy with an impossible workload. I was there for a year but it felt like 100 years. Sound...
Rejected again! Practical tips for turning job rejections into opportunities
The job hunt becomes discouraging when all you hear back is “no”. But rejections can be good feedback to help you get closer to the job you seek. Here are some tips that can help turn rejections into new opportunities: Sometimes “no” does not really mean “no," but you...
How to win the interview and get the job, even if you are new to the country
Let me tell you about my friend Mary. She is a very qualified accountant from Cameroon and has her CPA designation - that puts her at the highest level of qualified accountants in Canada. For almost two years she has been single-mindedly trying to find work in her...
Getting a job with your degree – 12 tips that work
Many university students are now finding themselves in the same boat as immigrant trained professionals: they have the education but cannot land jobs in their field. According to Stats Canada, of those who are earning money while completing their degrees, a whopping...
Work experience – does it really matter?
People with experience on their resumes tend to receive more interview requests, and experience is certainly good for personal brand and increasing perceptions of competence. Surprisingly, however, a meta-analysis [1] about the effects of work experience on job...
“Three cups of tea”: The principle behind building your network and getting results
Yes, you do need to network! In some countries people are introduced or placed by friends and family into jobs or brought into a business. In other countries, graduates find their first jobs because they are automatically placed by an educational institution,...
Dealing with prejudice during an interview: How even you can find the right words to be direct
You've researched the company, met up with employees who work there, prepped your answers so you can answer the key questions you know the interviewers are going to ask, put on your "power suit," and done everything you can to be ready to deliver the best job...
