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Career Bridge – 2011 CBC Toronto Vision Award for Immigrant Inclusion

 

 “Host employers tell us that they are blown away by the quality of talent in the Career Bridge program. This reinforces that Career Bridge is an effective means of finding and introducing exceptional people into their workforce.”

- Anne Lamont, President and CEO of Career Edge Organization
   

Career Edge Organization’s Career Bridge program has been connecting skilled immigrants with leading Canadian employers through paid internships since 2003. It’s a win-win for employers and immigrants.

Vision: 

  • To be an effective hiring and retention strategy for qualified, global talent and a sustainable and optimum path to permanent employment for skilled immigrants.

Leveraging partnerships: 

  • Career Bridge works with employers from both the public and private sector as well as with community agencies and other stakeholders.

Potential for wider impact: 

  • Career Bridge has recently partnered with the Canadian Immigrant Integration Program (CIIP), a project that facilitates skilled immigrants’ transition to Canada by starting the process before they arrive. Career Bridge is able to tap into the CIIP client base to identify talent that meets their employers’ needs and has the capacity for national reach through CIIP and its community focal point partners.

By the numbers:

  • Since 2003, Career Bridge has placed over 1,700 skilled immigrants in paid internships with over 200 different employers
  • Over 80% of interns have landed full-time employment in their field post internship

Profile

Since 2003, over 1,700 skilled immigrants have gained valuable Canadian work experience through Career Edge Organization’s Career Bridge paid internship program. The results? Over 80 percent of interns have landed full-time employment in their field post-internship.

The success of Career Bridge is attributed to the quality of talent and the supportive onboarding that is part of the internship model. All interns go through Career Bridge’s proprietary pre-screening process for English or English/French business communication skills in the form of a behavioural interview. Employers cite this as a key differentiator in the attraction, recruitment, and onboarding of diverse, qualified talent. Each intern is also assigned a dedicated coach/mentor to introduce them to the Canadian workplace and organization culture.

One employer, the City of Toronto, has hired over 80 interns since 2003 as part of its strategy to reflect the diversity of Toronto’s communities. Through Career Bridge and related strategies, the City of Toronto is actively embedding best practices on the hiring and integration of skilled immigrants into the organization. Career Bridge is now active in 14 divisions at the City, all of whom keep returning to the program because of the quality of the talent it brings them.

“Host employers tell us that they are blown away by the quality of talent in the Career Bridge program,” says Anne Lamont, President and CEO of Career Edge Organization. “This reinforces that Career Bridge is an effective means of finding and introducing exceptional people into their workforce.”

Career Bridge has recently partnered with the Canadian Immigrant Integration Program (CIIP), a project that facilitates skilled immigrants’ transition to Canada by starting the process before they arrive. Career Bridge supports and accelerates CIIP’s efforts by virtually pre-screening their clients who are eligible and job-ready. Career Bridge has the capacity for national reach as a result of the partnership with CIIP and its community focal point partners. A number of CIIP clients have registered with Career Bridge and have found internships shortly after arriving in Canada.

Looking forward, Career Edge Organization hopes more employers recognize and use the Career Bridge paid internship program as an effective hiring and retention strategy for qualified, global talent. With the continued and growing support of employers, Career Bridge will remain a sustainable and optimum path to permanent employment for skilled immigrants.