John Simeone is a faithful listener of CBC Toronto’s Metro Morning. Early on in the year he heard an interesting interview about skilled immigrants trying to find work in their field and mentally filed the name TRIEC as an organization that is working to improve immigrant integration in the city’s labour market.

Fast forward to June 2011. As Chief Technical Officer and VP Trust Services of Legacy Leaders, John needed to fill a vacancy for a senior network technician. Legacy Leaders provides integrated mail and phone services to charities that want to solicit for donors for planned gifts. John approached his CEO about giving a skilled immigrant candidate a chance. “Because we develop sophisticated technology and operate in a complex environment, it was important to Legacy Leaders to find a candidate with relevant experience, not just Canadian experience,” says John.

While it had been months, John remembered TRIEC from Metro Morning and called TRIEC’s Employer Helpline. TRIEC circulated the job posting to its community agency partners and John was soon reviewing over 10 resumes, one of which belonged to Mohammed Minhajuddin.

Mohammed had been eagerly awaiting his visa for four years. Attracted by a strong educational system and multicultural society, Mohammed had always been clear that Canada was the ultimate destination for him and his family.

Mohammed arrived in Toronto on April 6, 2011 – three months after receiving his visa from the government. By June he was enrolled in job search support from the Centre for Education and Training. With a strong command of the English language and over 10 years of international work experience, Mohammed was keen to find an interesting job where he could apply his specific information technology, telecommunications and GPS tracking experience. He had several interviews, but none of the positions were exactly what he wanted. Then came the call from Legacy Leaders.

Within one week of his two interviews, Mohammed was offered the job of Senior Network Technician / Support. “This is a wonderful opportunity for me to continue to work in IT and virtualization,” says Mohammed. “The job is a natural fit for me and best of all I didn’t have to compromise anything to find my first job in Canada.”

Listen to CBC Toronto’s Matt Galloway interview John and Mohammed about their story and the Metro Morning connection, in the inteview “Hired Through Metro Morning” on October 17, 2011.