Someone somewhere - mostly some over zealous advisor in a New Immigration Centre - started advising people to do "volunteering" - for getting experience and networking - and the possibility of getting a job in the same establishment.

This is totally wrong advice!!!

It is being used by unscrupulous people - to get free work done - by people already going through tough times... This issue needs to be addressed.

I know of a friend with years of experience being told to "volunteer" to get local experience!!!!! Poor lady spent months volunteering at her own cost. Finally realizing that she needs to get a real job - even if it is at a coffee shop.

Places where this is most rampant - institutes. First they take money to teach - then they make them work for free. Students are "advised" to add it to their resume. Believe me - this experience is not even considered.

Rule number one for volunteering - it should be done where there is no commercial value - eg. Admin work done at an institute - why should one do free work at such a place? They can hire a person. If they are not hiring/paying you - either you are not good enough or they are saving money.

Schools do not hire teachers from the pool of volunteers. It might be better to become a supply teacher. You need to register and there is a waiting list - I believe.

All new immigrants need to be told clearly - volunteering is not the quick and easy way to get jobs. It is not a route at all. Volunteering is for being a part of the community and to give back to society - like they say - pay it forward!

This volunteering for getting experience and hopes for a job is a clever strategy devised by some people to get an endless supply of free and qualified labour. Poor hapless newcomers - accept it as gospel and do it sincerely till they realize their mistake. Till then - the damage is done - bitterness has set in. Society is blamed. Government is cursed. This attitude is carried forward - which leads to more unhappiness and dissatisfaction.

It is better to be well informed and make the right choices from the very beginning. That way - integrating with society in the correct way can be achieved.

In today's world of information - educated people behaving in such an ignorant way - is a shame. How can so many educated people be misguided and misinformed?

We need to do our bit - to stop this practice - now!

Say no to volunteering! For jobs.

Some other nonsense advise to newcomers for landing jobs:
- shorten your resume - till it resembles nothing and says nothing about you/your ability - it is the number one reason people don't get jobs! Terrible advice about modification of resumes. We spend a lot of time having to re educate people about sensible resumes.
- Anglicizing of names
- take student loans and requalify - they get into a debt trap and still don't get jobs and get into a more desperate situation

There are some common myths that are being passed on blindly as "good advise" from well meaning well settled older immigrants to the new fresh faced immigrants as RULES to follow. Since everyone seems to give the same advice - people believe that there must be some sense to it.

Change must begin with us. It is cruelty. This misguiding of people. These are people who have families and mouths to feed and bills to pay. All because they are given wrong advice. It is we who need to understand the term volunteering - it's purpose. This twisting of term leads to so much wrong. It is almost criminal.

Expanding on the advice relating to shortening of resumes:

A resume needs to showcase one's talent - enough to be considered worthy of consideration for the job.

A lot of people - from Asian countries mostly - have a habit of attributing the choicest adjectives to themselves - going on and on. So, they are typically advised to keep their resume short and too the point.

This has been misunderstood to the point where very specific advice is given as keep it one page or maximum 2 pages. Poor people go to extreme lengths cutting out all their experience - taking out all the specifics - till it is difficult to make out the quality, abilities and calibre of the candidate. Little surprise - most people do not get jobs even after this exercise of destroying their own resumes.

We regularly see resumes of very experienced people which are ridiculous - eg. A project manager listed each of his projects and his responsibilities and experience - with 2-3 lines of bookish descriptions of a PM's role. We had to guide him to put specifics about each project and what he did so that the person seeing the resume is able to qualify his suitabity to the job.

Another example. We work a lot for government projects. Each resume is about 4-5 pages long. The criteria is always that the job description/requirements must be clearly visible in the resume in the experience and projects done. This over and above a very detailed skills matrix where each requirement is quantified and graded and specific related project experience is mentioned.

LinkedIn is a good place to see how people present themselves in your own industry.

A resume needs to be crisp - but it also needs to highlight your experience. We need to cut the fat in terms of

-descriptive meaningless overused words like "excellent team player, go-getter, can do attitude, out of the box thinker"
- or overtly long glowing descriptions of companies worked for - give a website address - they will check it if they are interested
- age/gender / nationality
- only the highest education need to be mentioned - along with any professional trainings ( no need to mention all the education from school in detail if you Have a masters degree)
- cut out irrelevant jobs - if they add too much and uneccesary bulk

In summation - a resume needs to say enough about you - to sell you.

New Immigration Centre Advisors are not experts in your field. They are generalists. They are well meaning - but they are just that. They give the same advice to all the people who walk through that door.
Volunteer. Shorten your resume yada yada yada.

Use your common sense. Use the services of Google. Use
A professional platform such as LinkedIn. See what people are writing about themselves. Mimic that.

An advertisement in India for an Indian audience will not be suitable in Canada to a Canadian audience - even if the product is the same. But the advertisement length and content will be more or less the same - though language and packaging/presentation are changed. Selling points may also change - but purpose is still to sell.

It is like women celebrities who go to plastic surgeons to all end up looking the same - and losing their charm and distinctiveness. Don't go shortening your resume so that it takes away your selling points. Keep it short and crisp - but say what you need to.

IMO, I would not agree fully to your views. Your post is taking volunteering to a bit extreme. Let me explain.

First of all, immigrants need to know about how Canadian's work. Once they know this, they know how to tap into the Canadian job market.

I will explain giving 2 examples.

A. Murugan is a B.E. Electrical Engineer. He is 28 years old with 4 years of experience in India. He is from the village and does not know proper manners / english.

B. Charles is an accountant. He has 30 years of accounting experience in SE Asia. Very well articulated.

When Murugan searches for a job, he can start from $ 12 an hour and then work up the ladder. With his background no one will give him a job. What he can do is to enrol in a free employemnt centre such as Gabriel and they will teach him the basics of resume writing, how to make phone calls, how to search for job, what language you have to use etc.. Then they will try to place him in some Electrical company where he can see and learn the Canadian way of working. After 3 months, if his job is good, they will hire him. Else they will let him go and he has to search for a job of his own. The 3 months experience will look good on his resume (though he did not get even $ 1) and the person will give him a reference, which is so essential.

Now let us take the case of Charles. Now do we expect Charles to work ar $ 12 or do we expect him to go to Gabriel where for 3 months, they will teach him what he already knows (there is a 6 months waiting period for it). Without teaching, Gabriel will not recruit Charles. The option that Charles has is to contact the companies directly, but since he is old and does not have Canadian experience, Canadian companies will not hire him for the simple reason that they think that they have to pay Charles $ 40 where as Charles is even desparate to work in that company for $ 10. Based on ethics the company will not hire charles. Now Charles has no option execpt to go back to Gabriel, and shorten his resume / experience and get placed as a volunteer.

Volunteering may not always lead to a job (you will have to be placed by reputed agencies like Gabriel , Costi etc as they know the company background) but it is good for new comers as they can put it in the resume and also get a reference.

For active immigrants, what I suggest is to modify their resume to state that they have 2 or 3 year Canadian experience and that theur Diploma is from Canada. No new immigrant will ever do that but once you have around 4-6 years experience then you can do that. After the recession of 2009 I did that and got good response. Making your name English sounding is worth it.

In 2007, our office was looking for $ 12 draftspersons. After an advt., we got around 100 applications. Many from South Americans and East Europeans. Most of them had a degree in Archietcture from a university there. Most ladies showed experience as sales girls and day care providers in Canada. We did not choose anyone from that list as this was a technical position. When 2007 itself was like that, imagine 2015.

Use Canada as Canada uses you. Otherwise you will become extinct.

Murali

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I am a Gents and not a Ladies.

TK – I guess you are mixing up volunteering with Co-op/internship. OP has stated about volunteering and not about co-op and you are talking about co-op.

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A Delhite in Toronto

Someone somewhere - mostly some over zealous advisor in a New Immigration Centre - started advising people to do "volunteering" - for getting experience and networking - and the possibility of getting a job in the same establishment.

This is totally wrong advice!!!

It is being used by unscrupulous people - to get free work done - by people already going through tough times... This issue needs to be addressed.

Nope, Delhite. I am not talking about Co-op or mixing up volunteering.

Co-op is something that is part of your course curriculam where they place you for work experience at some companies for 3 months or more. It is a paid oppertunity. At the end of Co-op, if they are pleased with your services, they will offer you a job with more salary.

Volunteering is where you go to gain experience alone without any pay or the possibility of getting a confirmed job (in the context of new immigrants). You go there to get the nuances of Canadian work culture. Even if they are exploiting you, volunteering is vilunteering. You get exposed to their work and you can state what you did in your resume. They are expected to act as a reference to you.

Volunteering (not in the context of new immigrants) is where you have extra time and you feel bored and you want to give back to the society. You may be working in a food bank or visiting cancer patients or cleaning up toxic lakes etc.. This is when you are in a retired mode of life.

No volunteering is exploitation (IMO). If you donot like it, you are free to quit anyday. This is not bonded labour nor is Canada a bonded labour country.

Just to give you my experience, I never had volunteered. I used to get $ 10 an hour at one italian company. Some weeks I was happy and in some weeks, I felt that $ 10 was too small. So I started exploiting my employer by not working to my full potential. SOmetimes I used to be in CD, sometime I used to read the Toronto star and sometimes I used to apply for Gulf jobs. So it works both ways. No point in blaming only the employer.

In one the companies that I applied after the 2008 recession, they gave me a plan of a house (as part of the job interview) and told me to put in to the computer. I came home and refused to do it, since I thought that I was made to work for free but my brother convinced me to do it, since my EI was coming to an end (EI was there for just another 2 weeks). I spent 6 hours and did it and sent it to the potential employer. I got the job offer at $ 16 an hour, free coffee / tea / iced tea, overtime after 44 hours etc.. So everything is worth a shot. Even when you volunteer and the employer exploits you, the other people working with you will give you tips and hints as to how to escape the employer.

Murali.

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I am a Gents and not a Ladies.

I think the OPs title is self explanatory. She is warning new comers to consider Volunteering as a goal towards employment - it should not be. The first red flag for anyone is when a company asks for volunteering as 'full time' - no sincere employer will do so. If you get an opportunity to volunteer 3-4 hours in a week - take that as an opportunity to network and understand the work culture, incorporate the lessons learnt in your resume and interviews - you will find yourself more acceptable to potential employers. Volunteering full time under-estimates your own value - should not be encouraged.

Under any circumstances the new comer should be smart enough to recognize potential opportunities in the company within 3-4 days. If he/she continues to work for free, the employer is not going to resist free labor and it also proves that the employee is dumb enough not to realize this.

Giving back to the society and community comes at a later stage when you have taken care of your own and your family needs.

Just my 2 cents.
Hiren

Whereas the OP is correct that new immigrants should not expect to be absorbed by the companies in which they are volunteering , I do feel that volunteering for a couple of months can give them the much touted Canadian exposure and experience which is generally used as a filtering criterion.

Co-op is different altogether. Its a paid internship in a skilled area and you have a higher chance of being absorbed as this Organization hires in contrast to the volunteered at Organizations who do not hire the volunteers and in a way exploit them.

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Fido.