HR Panel, Wendy Rabel- Stantec, Tonya Syvitski – RHMR, Chetinder Brar – City of Edmonton, Mark Karpinka – Lafarge, Adesiji Rabiu – Enbridge (Moderator)
by Elena Chernaeva, ERIEC Project Coordinator
Last Tuesday, September 30th, ERIEC hosted the second Smart Connections event of the 2014. Over 90 internationally educated engineers convened at the MacEwan University in Edmonton and had the opportunity to meet with over 20 major employers, educators and guest speakers from the Edmonton business community.
It was a “full house” of well prepared and job ready immigrant professionals. Chetinder Brar from the Corporate Human Resources department at the City of Edmonton described the participants as , “eager and ambitious minds”.
Our schedule for the day was very tight but included informative presentations from Alberta Works, APEGA and Jacobs Engineering.
Matt Adolphe, Author of “Canadian Workplace Culture: Mastering the Unspoken Rules“ spoke about what you need to know about Canadian workplace expectations, why the “weather talk” in Canada is so important to immigrant integration. The audience wanted to hear more from Matt but unfortunately our schedule would not allow it. For anyone interested in booking Matt for workshops or as a keynote speaker you will not be disappointed and we would be happy to provide his contact information.
I’d like to express my deep gratitude to our top HR panelists: Wendy Rabel from Stantec, Tonya Syvitski from Robert Half, Chetinder Brar from The City of Edmonton and Mark Karpinka from Lafarge. Thank you all for sharing your expertise and insider knowledge regarding the “secrets of hiring”, as well as for your open feedback and valuable insights and tips. It came as no surprise to me that I would have a hard time to wrap it up at the end of the session. People could have kept talking with all of you for at least another couple of hours!
Special “thank you” went out to Adesiji Rabiu from Enbridge who skillfully moderated the panel. Adesiji is also the author of the book “Leading and Realizing Your Career Goals.”Wow! Two authors at one event!
Thank you all for participating and for supporting the immigrant professionals community!