Explore Settlement Tools to Improve Career Outcomes
Settlement Tools to Improve Career Outcomes
Immigrant women in STEM and the organizations that support them persevere despite resource restraints and an onslaught of obstacles. There is an urgent need for innovative programs and tools to change the way we support highly-skilled immigrant women for the better.
Immigrant women make up 52% of Canada’s women in STEM workforce and present the biggest untapped pool of STEM talent and the most significant opportunity to diversify our innovation sectors. Yet, this high potential talent pool experiences the worst labour market outcomes compared to immigrant men and non-immigrant women in STEM.
““I remember coming as an immigrant and being told ‘you have all the skills, you don’t need support’...but then I was still struggling...There was no support after [getting a foot in the door], and the glass ceiling was left very low.””
Why do resume-based job applications not work for immigrant women in STEM?
Research continually demonstrates that when used in isolation, resume-based recruitment strategies do not help immigrants overcome the barriers in finding relevant, meaningful work.
When thousands of randomly manipulated resumes were sent in response to online job postings in Toronto, Ontario, substantial discrimination was found for those with foreign names and credentials. Those with foreign education and experience faced the most discrimination and lowest callback rates. Attempts to make positive changes to the resumes, including listing language fluency, multinational firm experience, or highly selective schools, did nothing to mitigate this discrimination. While prevalent in all sectors, these intersectional barriers are particularly exacerbated for immigrant women highly skilled in STEM sectors [1].
Catalyst: An Innovative Program to Support Immigrant Women in STEM
To support settlement agencies’ move away from resume-based recruitment strategies, TGC developed Catalyst. Catalyst is an online pilot program designed to guide STEM-trained immigrant women in developing new strategies to advance their careers in STEM fields.
Catalyst aims to:
Acknowledge the power and potential of immigrant women in STEM and rebuild their confidence
Enrich the career advancement toolkits of immigrant women in STEM with alternative approaches to job searching and building their professional networks
“ “Redefining my career story had made me feel less like an imposter, it gave me a new level of confidence to speak about what I can do and my previous work. This is one of the best tools I have learned, and my introduction speech during my interviews have been positively impacted.””
Download an informative two-page summary document to share with your networks.
English summary document
French summary document
References
[1] Oreoplous, 2011