TRIEC Mentoring Partnership explained

Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council (TRIEC) has an objective of addressing the problem of immigrant underemployment- the fact that extremely highly skilled people come to Toronto but end up in low-skilled jobs. TRIEC directly works with several Employment Partners like RBC, TD, BMO, CIBC, Scotiabank, EY, KPMG, Manulife, Deloitte, Accenture, Rogers and others to promote diversity and hiring of newcomers. The Council is funded by the Government as well as some private Sponsors. TRIEC runs an excellent program called TRIEC Mentoring Partnership.

What is TRIEC Mentoring Partnership?

The objective of the program is to pair newcomer immigrants with experienced Mentors who will become your buddy and the go-to-resource for finding suitable employment. The Mentor will devote upto 18 hours of their time in guiding you and helping you find employment. There are a lot of stories where Mentors eventually became close confidants and the Mentee got placed within their Mentor organizations. You will find employees from the big five banks as well as other large institutions as Mentors.

You can register to be mentored through TRIEC Mentoring Partnership if you:

• Are legally able to work in Canada;
• Have lived in Canada for less than five years;
• Have the English language skills to perform effectively in the workplace in your field;
• Have post-secondary qualifications equivalent to a College or University degree;
• Have a minimum of two years of international work experience in your profession;
• Have limited or no Canadian work experience in your profession;
• Are currently unemployed or underemployed (i.e. you are not working in your field of expertise)

How to register for TRIEC Mentoring?

Your first target will be to enroll yourself in the TRIEC Mentoring Partnership program. The program is run by affiliated Community Partners which would have designated official Coaches. These Community Partners are agencies which work directly with TRIEC to find suitable candidates for the program and help them register.

Here is a list of Community Partners:

When you reach out to a Community Partner, please ask the contact details of the Coaches for the TRIEC Mentoring Partnership Initiative. Some of the Community partners also have regular information sessions where they describe the details of the program. One such information session is shortly happening by Skills for Change on July 25. Please register for it free using this link.

The designated Coach will evaluate your eligibility for the program and share you a link to register as a Mentee. Once you are registered in the pool, your Coach will try to match you with a Mentor suitable to your profile. The influence your Community Partner/Coach has is important and of some significance. Please note that there is a shortage of Mentors a lot of the times and new Mentors are continuously added to the pool. A pro-active coach would reach out to a Mentor on your behalf to fix a match. Sometimes it takes upto 3-4 months to get matched successfully. The Coach is the person best placed to help you.

What happens after you are matched?

In most cases you will meet your Mentor for the first time during a planned orientation session. One orientation session in January was sponsored and supported by RBC where more than 150 Mentors from RBC met the Mentees at a venue in downtown Toronto. The program is structured in such a way that your Mentor shall dedicate around 18 hours of interaction over a span of 3 months. It is recommended that you meet your Mentor in person for a few meetings and discuss your struggles in finding suitable employment. A seasoned Mentor would be able to understand your background and arrange coffee and networking chats for you. They would be able to coach you to understand the Canadian style of reaching out for roles. Sometimes, they may refer you for positions internal to their organizations as well. Please read some of the Mentee FAQs here.

Outcome of the Program

As per TRIEC, so far 17000 Mentoring matches with Employer Partners have been conducted so far. If you are lucky and you are matched with a Mentor in a similar background and with some influence in their organizations, you may get a strong referral which may eventually help you in landing a role that you are really enthusiastic about. There have been quite a few stories where the Mentee was hired by the Mentor organization.

Any questions?

The program is certainly a good one and I would recommend you to please register for it. If you have any questions, please leave them below. In case you know someone, who might benefit from the information above, do reach out to them and share the link.

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