Outdated Mindsets and Processes are Creating Barriers to Work for Students Across Canada.

Students are facing barriers, uncertainty, and biases as they navigate their school to work transitions.

The barriers, however, are the not the typical ones you might imagine. These barriers are due to the slow progression of mindset shifts, outdated processes and yesterday’s policies that have not kept up with the modern reality of work, transferable skills and hiring for potential to enable students for the future of work now. These stories I am about to share are real stories of current situations. The names and some of the details have been changed to protect privacy of the individuals, the institutions and the organizations. The intent of this thought leadership article is not to point fingers and | or to place blame but to help us all to start to look to unravel the ropes and breakdown the barriers to work so that every student can have access to the experiences they need to be prepared for success in the workplace.

Multiple Work Terms, Can’t Get Another One

Let’s meet John. John is a undergrad coop student at a university in Ontario pursuing his Bachelor of Business Administration with a minor in Finance. John has had three work terms with the bank for the past three summers and he has taken the advice of his school, career services and his mentors to work in three completely different business areas within the bank to gain the most knowledge and skills and to explore the various lines of business. As mentioned, John is in a formalized coop program at his university and has secured his roles though his career services department and the employee job portal for the past three years. In January, John logs onto the coop | employee job portal to find that he no longer has access to the system. John calls his tech support at the school only to find he was removed from the system and no longer has access. Confused by this John approaches his career services department and he is informed that he maxed out his coop placements (you are only allowed three) and therefore will not have access to the coop | employee job portal this summer. John paid into coop at his university for the support and access to employee jobs but due to the program restrictions three work terms is all he can be eligible for and | or access under the current coop program guidelines (restrictions). During covid-19, John finds himself on his own to network and seek that final summer job before he graduates in May 2022. If he gets a 4th job for the summer he will get additional work experience but it won’t count towards his coop program or credits as it is outside of the program guidelines and rules.?This is a true story with some of the details changed for privacy reasons.

International Student Needs Placement in Her Field of Study

Let’s meet Megan. In January, Megan just arrived as a newcomer to Canada and immediately has enrolled in College to build her “Canadian experience.” Her field of study she has chosen is Marketing. Megan has paid her full tuition and enrolled in the coop program as well. With coop, Megan will need to complete a work term with an employer to graduate. Megan knows no one in Canada, she left her family behind and she has no relatives or friends in Canada. Megan is without a network or anyone that can introduce her to someone to start to explore ideas for jobs this summer. Feeling desperate, alone and isolated due to the pandemic, Megan notices a Networking Event for Newcomers to Canada and decides to enroll. Megan is thrilled at the opportunity to connect with business leaders and to see what the possibilities might be for her this summer. Megan attends the event and is actually connected to an executive in a 1:1 virtual speed networking event and they agree to stay connected after the event. Megan’s mentor introduces her to a recruiter at the bank and she is excited to hear more about the role in finance that is available. Megan, interviews for the summer role in finance and is offered the job to start in May. Megan contacts her career services department to share the good news only to be told that “although this looks a like a good job it is not in your field of study which is marketing so therefore we cannot count or validate this for approval for your coop work term requirements.” Megan is saddened by this news and doesn’t know where to turn or what to do. Megan is new to Canada and really needs a job to put food on her table and to get real work experience in her new country. Megan reaches out to the executive who is also astonished by the news and reaches back out the recruiter at the bank. They both agree if they can provide some “marketing related” experiences during her work term that perhaps the college will allow the student to work for the bank and fulfill the coop requirement for graduation. The recruiter contacts the school and the school agrees with the proper documentation in the form of a letter (confirming a marketing project) from the executive the student offer will be upheld and recognized by the school for coop credit. The recruiter now is faced with going back to the bank executive to ask for a formal letter to finalize the approval from the school. The executive then writes the letter for the student to be delivered by the recruiter back to the school. Upon review, the school agrees it is a “valid” work term and tells the recruiter and the student that they are okay to accept the summer role in finance at the bank.?This is a true story with some of the details changed for privacy reasons.

Job Postings for All Students, Well Maybe Not All Students

As we look to focus on transferable skills, all programs, all degrees and truly welcome all students to apply for their first dream job at the bank there are still many old systems of control and barriers that do not necessarily treat all students with the same access to job opportunities.

We have a new posting for the summer, it is virtual, it is open to any student in any year and we do not require financial or business knowledge to apply for the role. The hiring manager agrees she actually want to see students from all disciplines and facilities and is not opposed to having an Arts Major or even a Musical Theater Major apply to her role for a High Net Worth Banking Advisor Student Role on her team this summer. The recruiter is excited to look across Canada and find students with diversified backgrounds and life experiences to fulfill this role and decides to open it up on the Employee Portal System to all schools, all universities and all colleges. The recruiter uploads the job posting and a week later notices she is not getting the diversity of candidates across the various programs and facilities at the schools who received the student job posting and that only coop students with business and finance are applying. Upon calling a few career counselors, the recruiter finds that the job postings at two of the schools was only shared with the business and finance students who were formally in coop programs. Although the direction from the recruiter and hiring manager was to “open it up” to all students (coop and non-coop) this was not the case. With back and forth conversations between the recruiter and the career counselors the the decision remains that they will only share this job posting with the coop students within business and finance who have paid for this service as part of their coop fees. Feeling extremely frustrated and discouraged, the recruiter takes to LinkedIn to share with her network with the hopes of attracting more diversity of students (coop and non-coop) to the role.?This is a true story with some of the details changed for privacy reasons.

The Student Needs to Pay for Career Services

Understandably, schools are a business and they must make revenue for their institutions beyond just offering a great education.

This next example includes a high performing student, Stephen, who was engaged in employment at the bank and was being looked at for future full-time possibilities. The student was a psychology student with a double major in political science and kinesiology at his school. Stephen had never taken a business course, was not enrolled in coop at his university and was working his summer job with the hopes of going back to campus to be that Student Ambassador to help campus recruitment to demystify the bank and share his experiences with other students. The recruiter was thrilled to have this amazing student representing the bank and to go back to school to share his journey and all that he learned with his peers. As always, the recruiter shares the Student Ambassador list with the school’s career services offices so they can get to know their Student Ambassador and leverage them back at campus for career chats and networking events. The student set forth to connect with the various career services offices to make can connections and help where he could possibly make a difference. With this student being from a different program he was not met with open arms by the business school and in fact after many times to connect he was declined by the career services leadership to meet even for a coffee chat. I personally knew this student and have taking him to dinner and coffee chats in the past I found this situation rather bothersome and disappointing. I decided to reach out my self to the business school career services and was told that “due to the fact that the psychology student with a double major in political science and kinesiology was not in the business coop program, the business career services would not be able to meet with him as he was not eligible to take advantage of their services.” The conversation went on with me to include that “if this student would like to connect perhaps they could enroll for business course in coop (pay the fees) and continue the conversation.” I proceeded to express my disappoint with the business career services office, hung up the phone and went for a long walk.?This is a true story with some of the details changed for privacy reasons.

By now if you are an advocate for students to have equal access and elimination of systemic barriers to work these stories probably are not sitting well with you right now. Very transparently, I went back and forth in my head as to if I should share and tell these stories and finally told myself that if I did not speak up and share these stories who would? Each one of us has the power of voice and the power to inspire others to change. I hope as being that disruptor for change in this student to work ecosystem that these stories will inspire you too to speak up for change and enable our youth for the future of work now without discrimination and barriers to success.

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