Thank you very much for your question. In the beginning of my presentation I mentioned the soft skills. Right now, I work a lot in settlement services. I help newcomers with their résumés. I get a lot of résumés with their pictures. That is number one.
Number two, in answer to your question, Canada doesn't pay the specialist. Most newcomers have their general résumés, and their résumé says “engineer” and that's it. In Canada, as I have learned myself, it has to be either civil, mechanical, or electrical engineer, and then under that there is always some specification of what you bring.
A lot of newcomers, to the best of my knowledge, have the competency but they don't know how to express it in those two pages. When you say “engineer” in Canada, it doesn't mean a lot. You have to say what category of engineer and what kinds of duties you have been doing back home. If it just says engineer, enseignant, doctor, etc., it wouldn't help.
We get a lot of people coming to us saying they have applied 70 times, 100 times, and didn't get any response. My first intervention is on those soft skills. We have to teach them what Canadian corporations are expecting from people, from newcomers.
As I said, they have the technical competencies, and that is why they come to Canada. They have the competencies and the technical qualifications. The soft skills help them to sell themselves through the résumé and cover letter. That is what's most important. We know this leads to the interview.
Name, gender, and country I don't think are important at this time, because when people see your résumé they want to know if you can do the job.