The assessment and recognition of the education credentials of foreign-trained workers is an issue of growing importance in Canada. An accurate understanding and evaluation of the skills, knowledge and experience of foreign-trained workers plays a key role in enabling these workers to find jobs in which this preparation can be used to full advantage. When this happens, the individual benefits from earnings in keeping with his/her skills, and the employer and economy benefit from the full productive use of those skills. When this does not happen, the full productive potential of the labour force goes unrealized, and the affected individuals and their families suffer lower incomes and standards of living. Businesses and individuals suffer; the country suffers.

Over the last several years, the growing threat of skill shortages has lent increasing importance to the need to fully use the skills of the Canadian labour force, regardless of where these skills were obtained. In turn, this has made it more and more important that the qualifications of foreign-trained workers be fully and accurately evaluated, so that they can be most effectively used.

In this context, in September 2000, the Canadian Labour and Business Centre (CLBC) was contracted by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) and Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC) to undertake a project to engage Canadian employers in preliminary discussions around two issues, namely:

1. Business experiences with issues and processes related to recognition of foreign credentials, and their implications for further government approaches in this area, and
2. Communicating with the business community to raise awareness of and interest in foreign credential recognition issues, including promotion of provincially-mandated credential assessment services.

The focus of the work was on credentials assessment issues, as distinct from other immigration-related concerns highlighted by employers.

In carrying out this project between October 2000 and January 2001, the CLBC interviewed, by telephone, a selection of 25 employer representatives, government representatives, and representatives of provincial credentials-assessment services. The interviews explored employers’ views and experiences with assessing and recognizing the credentials of foreign-trained workers, as well as approaches to raising the awareness of employers on these subjects.

This report summarizes the project findings.

Canadian employers use a wide variety of approaches to assess the education and experience credentials of foreign-trained candidates. These differences in approaches reflect the skills/occupations being sought, as well as the employer’s sector.

Employers recruiting in occupations and professions which require formal certification or licensing had the clearest education recognition requirements, since these were governed by provincial certifying/licensing agencies. In other occupations, however, employers’ practices in assessing paper credentials varied enormously. Some took these credentials at face value, some used the credentials assessment services of universities or provincially mandated credentials assessment agencies, while others consulted with informal networks of individuals from specific countries, who were familiar with the granting institutions in those countries.

A number of interviewed employers, however, stressed relevant experience over paper credentials. In the high-tech sector, for example, labour demand is so tight that employers focus primarily on relevant experience and on-the-job demonstration of skills and competence, as well as English competence, to find a candidate who is immediately productive.

Some firms and sectoral organizations had developed occupational standards against which anyone, whether foreign- or Canadian-trained, can be assessed in a transparent manner. The principles of Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR) were a strong feature of these innovative approaches.

Employer concerns varied widely, and included the following key points:

1. In several professions in the health and engineering field where provincial or federal licensing bodies grant formal professional recognition, there was a strong sense among interviewed employers that the licensing processes were too restrictive.
   
   One Ontario employer, in this connection, wondered whether the provincial certification agencies in various professions would be required to use the new provincial credentials assessment agency, or whether they would continue to use their own resources to check paper credentials. If the latter, this raised questions about why two parallel mechanisms would co-exist.
   
   This same employer also asked whether thought had been given to developing a master reference database for provincial credentials assessment agencies.
   
   
2. Several employers, including some in engineering and health, were concerned that immigrants leave their home countries without accurate information about the occupational certification practices they will face when they come to Canada. Preparation and counseling of immigrants in their home country about these realities is thus an important requirement, to avoid disillusionment. 
   
   
3. Allowing immigrants to self-assess their credentials before immigrating, either via a web site or related tool, was a theme raised more than once. Such a process, under development in some professions in some provinces, can help prospective immigrants determine where their credentials fit in Canadian terms, and provide a realistic picture of what they will encounter in Canada.
   
   
4. In the view of some employers, the current immigration points rating system puts too much weight on paper credentials and not enough on experience. This in turn raises the issue of how such experience can be accurately assessed, and highlights the potential role of Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR) in this regard.
   
   
5. In provinces where provincial credentials assessment agencies existed, some employers contacted were not aware of them.  In Ontario, where such an agency has recently begun operating, there was a feeling among responding employers that the service would be valuable. Nevertheless, for the new service in Ontario as with others, publicity and promotion to employers posed a key initial challenge.

Those promoting the services of credentials assessment agencies to the business community need to take into account the variation in employers’ reliance on credentials assessment, and in their practices in this regard. This suggests that the most effective marketing efforts for these agencies might be ones that are targeted at particular sectors or employer groups most likely to (i) recruit foreign-trained workers and (ii) attach importance to candidates’ paper credentials.

These communications would stress (i) that it makes good business sense to hire foreign-trained workers, and (ii) that using provincial credentials assessment agencies also makes good business sense by broadening the pool of qualified candidates, while reducing the costs of recruitment interviews, probationary trial periods, and similar activities.

Such a promotional process might nevertheless have to begin, however, with a relatively broad-brush approach to the employer community, perhaps through associations of human resources professionals. Subsequently, partnerships with appropriate sectoral employer associations or sector councils would help maintain communications between the employers and the assessment agencies.

The resources involved in these promotion efforts, however, should not be underestimated. Constant turnover among human resources professionals and recruiters in larger employers, and the continuing entry and exit of small businesses, mean that regular or even repetitive contacts are required.

As skill shortages worsen and the need to use available skills most productively increases, the interests of employers in the effectiveness of credentials assessment and recognition processes should become more acute. Governments are challenged to find a way to engage the employer community in discussions of these issues in a way that suits both. Further complicating the issue is the need to distinguish the credentials assessment issues from the other regulatory, administrative, and ‘red tape’ issues on which employers often express concern.

As has been noted, employers, for a variety of reasons, have not come forward in large numbers to provide advice to governments on credentials recognition policies or practices. Ongoing, open-ended employer advisory groups will not be attractive to potential employer participants. Rather, an approach that is focussed on a problem which employers perceive to be real, and is finite in terms of time commitment, may stand a better chance of attracting participants. Soliciting the advice, assistance and nominations of employer organizations, on these terms, can facilitate the process.

A more extensive consultation with employers on credentials assessment issues would deepen governments’ understanding not only of what the issues are, but also of the breadth, depth, and details of employers’ concerns, beyond those outlined in this project. Such research might focus on the particular concerns of employers in specific sectors in which credentials assessment issues are a relative priority, and might be undertaken with the collaboration of the relevant sector employers’ associations and/or sector councils, where appropriate.

To identify these sectors, however, might involve some initial broader-brush approaches, perhaps through provincial human resources professionals or recruiters’ associations, or credentials assessment services. It is also clear that the intensity of further research on these issues would vary geographically, focusing on those regions with a larger immigrant population.