Introduction

This chapter considers the roles of language ability and professional background in job seekers’ experiences; it investigates how internationally educated professionals’ (IEPs’) individual attitudes, circumstances and their adaptation to Canadian life have influenced their varied employment trajectories and transitions from seeking work to becoming employed – or not. I first consider the economic and demographic context in which this study, set in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, Canada, takes place. Then, I briefly describe the Internationally Educated Professionals Project (IEPro), which is theoretically grounded in sociolinguistic literature on language and identity (Buckingham 2008; Gee 1996), gatekeeping encounters and co-membership (Johnston 2008; Kerekes 2006), and the role of trust in becoming gainfully employed (Kerekes 2003; Kerekes et al. 2013; Tsai et al. 2011; Uslaner 2010). From here, I present the cases of two employment-seeking engineers, and consider their implications for both pedagogy and employment practices.

Canadian employment context

The unemployment rate of IEPs is almost twice that of Canadian-educated professionals in the same fields (Zietsma 2010: 14), and the gap between their average earnings is growing (Abbott and Beach 2011). In 2006, only 24 per cent of IEPs were employed in their professions, as opposed to 62 per cent of their Canadian counterparts (Zietsma 2010). Professional challenges faced by IEPs who come to Canada include obtaining recognition of foreign education and credentials, a lack of Canadian work experience, and language (English or French) proficiency (Boyd and Schellenberg 2007; Engineers Canada and Canadian Council of Technicians and Technologists 2009; Frenette and Morisette 2003; Walters et al. 2006; Zong 2004). Professionally trained immigrants from English-speaking countries have been shown to have the highest likelihood of obtaining appropriate employment within their fields of training in Canada (Zietsma 2010: 18), lending credence to the perception that fluency in English and familiarity with its cultural milieu are key elements of employability. IEPs, many of whom are racialised minorities,2 must also navigate discrimination and negative employer perceptions. Even among traditionally high-income professions (Novak and Chen 2013), Grant and Nadin (2007: 143) found that ‘racialized Canadians with foreign training in these fields of study were the ones who tended to be most underpaid relative to White, native-born Canadians’.