On the 12th, 13th and 14th of February, my partner at BFF Intercâmbio, Daniely Ramos, and I visited Toronto. It was my second time in the city and her first time. With a wind chill of -17 degrees, between colleges, English schools and other commitments we had, we visited the Arrive, a venture of RBC Ventures, which is part of the Royal Bank of Canada, Canada's largest bank. A Arrive is a digital platform created to support newcomers in achieving their personal life, career and financial goals in Canada. It provides free quality content on its website and social media and an app where people can connect with professionals already in the Canadian job market. An innovative and excellent initiative for the newcomer to start building networking and also find out about various aspects of life in Canada.
Lucas Mendonça, Product Growth by Arrive
At Arrive, we were welcomed by Lucas Mendonça, 31 years old, a Brazilian from Aracaju, who arrived in Canada in 2017 with his wife to build a better life. Lucas started at the company as an intern and is now part of Arrive's product growth marketing team. Lucas and his wife faced several challenges and like many couples do, one came to study and the other to work. After making some mistakes – as almost all Brazilians did during the Canada Plan – life began to improve and today they are both happy with their choices in the city of Toronto. One of the most important things Lucas told me in the interview I did with him (you can check it here), was to report his progress in the language and, consequently, in his career. When he arrived in Toronto he still didn't have good English, but he wanted to improve quickly because both for studying (he was at college) and for finding a good job, mastering the language would be essential. He reported an episode he had during a work meeting when his English was not yet sharp and which got him into trouble. His manager – who I also had the opportunity to talk to – gave him an important feedback “What you need to improve is your English, the rest is great.” And that's what he did. Today, at Arrive, he serves both the external public (immigrants from all over the world who arrive in Canada) and also communicates with colleagues and company managers in an effective and much more assertive way. On top of that, Lucas has excellent soft skills, essential for communication and survival in the job market, which is always improving.
Lucas introduced me to some people from the company and also from other ventures that are part of RBC and I was able to interview them. It was great to meet professionals who work in one of the most modern companies in Canada and understand how they think. One of them is Neha Nathani, Product Associate Development at venture Prepped, which helps students prepare and connect with the job market. Neha studied business and in her opinion, one of the biggest challenges for immigrant students is the networking. “Most jobs are not advertised, so students need to know how to market themselves and build relationships in the area they want to work in,” she says. At Prepped, they offer training and 12 exercises with videos for students to improve their performance in interviews, building the resume (curriculum), cover lyrics, job searches and all of this completely online. She also highlighted the importance of being present at events, showing your face and talking to people in the industry.
Also in Arrive, we also spoke with Sonia Sidhu, Product Manager who has worked at the company since 2018 and is Canadian, the daughter of immigrants. She highlighted the importance of her role and that of her team, which is to create the most incredible experience for the newcomers who come to them. One of the things that caught my attention the most in your speech was when you said “When we arrived, we felt confused about our identity. The financial part makes us lose our identity a little, the professional and cultural part too. Something will be shaken. So, how can we make this process less painful?” She spoke about the role of Arrive’s “ambassadors,” industry professionals who support newcomers by sharing experiences and helping them make connections. All of this online and in a simple and hassle-free way. At times it is a bit reminiscent of some LinkedIn functions. One of the main pieces of advice she gives to foreigners newly arrived in Canada is “Always stay informed and set goals for yourself, first in the short term and then in the long term, so by dividing your goals, it becomes easier to get there.” And he adds “Stay optimistic”.
As we toured the ventures office – which is located on one of the floors of the RBC building in downtown Toronto – I noticed that we were in a super modern company, with a lot of young people and also people of different ages, in spaces designed to encourage dialogue, technology and creativity. In this environment there were professionals from the IT, HR, marketing, finance and other areas, and it was where I also spoke with Angelique de Montbrun, Head of Marketing from Arrive. She recommends that foreigners who intend to arrive in Canada access the Arrive from your home country, for information (content) and when you arrive in Canada, also access the app to connect with people. She also spoke a little about the marketing market and what she believes makes a good professional in this area today. “Marketers are storytellers It is translators, the market needs it. The market is also changing, today there is a tendency for companies to have more housing (agency team within the company) than hiring third-party agencies. In Toronto there are many opportunities for professionals who are in tune with trends,” she said. As I have been a marketing and communications professional my entire life in Brazil, hearing people who are so up to date and up to date with the most modern developments in the profession filled my eyes. Since arriving in Canada I decided to do something else, follow other paths, but I always encourage anyone who wants to enter this field, advising them to have an open mind to new things and do networking with professionals like the ones I found at Arrive.
The leader's gaze
Finally, I managed to talk a little with Sean Mathews, director of brand strategy from RBC Ventures. An incredible professional with innovative thinking and very kind who welcomed us very well. Born in India, he was the manager who gave Lucas, the Brazilian, advice to improve his English. Among many things, I separated some highlights of his speech: he highlighted the importance of having excellent English for anyone who wants to work in communications, marketing and advertising, “the way a person presents themselves, sells themselves, is everything”, he says. Another thing that I found fantastic in his statement was when he said that immigrants from the BRICS countries, for example, often believe that Canada and the United States are better in everything, which is not always true and can harm our self-esteem and self-confidence. when looking for a place in the job market. For him, those of us who come from these countries face very complex problems in our professional and personal lives, as they are more unstable and challenging places. So we have skills that bring us a lot of difference. But he advises “you must be very clear about what you are, and only then will you know what you want to do”. I asked him what type of professional he would hire for his team, what he considers important when hiring and he replied “you need to have a good mind and a good heart”. “If a person has a flaw in one of these two things, then we have a problem,” he adds. Furthermore, he mentioned that he considers a good professional to be someone who applies what he has learned and the way he applies it is important, someone who knows how to work with integrated marketing and has excellent soft skills such as, for example, knowing how to manage conflicts in difficult times.
Another very important point we talked about was the Canadian experience, something so required of immigrants and which generally represents a year of work in the market. He said his view on the matter is as follows: “The Canadian experience is nothing more than working with Canadians and foreigners who are here. There are many different cultures and understanding cultures is about reading body language. Canadians and many other people are not as outgoing in the way they communicate with colleagues, so it will take a while for us to understand certain things and what they mean.” It makes perfect sense. While we, Brazilians, look at each other and already know what each other is thinking in a few seconds, we are very expressive and often even passionate, Canadians and other foreigners are generally more closed and discreet, therefore, it is very different when we are in a country with so much diversity. The Canadian experience is being in the job market until we learn how different cultures behave so that we can coexist well with them, respecting each other. “Canada is a trust-based market,” Mathews said, so obviously the Canadian experience makes perfect sense. Both companies and the government also need to “read us” to understand and trust us. And vice versa. “They (companies) want to make sure they are hiring the right person”, concludes the director.
Finally, I asked him what he considers a good resume and what he looks at first when selecting resumes to hire someone for his team. He said “I stick very closely to top summary (the highlights we place at the top of the Canadian CV template or in the cover letter – cover letter that accompanies the CV – which summarize our qualifications). I will focus and give great value to elevator pitch“, in other words, he will look at how the person sells themselves, how they tell their professional story in order to value their qualities and convince, in a few words, that they are the most qualified and differentiated for the position. He also mentioned that he doesn't like Skype interviews, even though they are very common. Much of what he said is in line with what I learned in the courses I already took in Canada related to career and professional development for immigrants, where these things were equally valued and mentioned.
In my view and experience so far, many Brazilians are technically excellent, but they often arrive in Canada without language preparation and also without developing the much-valued skills soft skills. This look inside a Canadian super corporation confirmed many things for me: the importance of good English, knowing how to sell and network appropriately and having an open mind to live in a multicultural country, where the balance between technique and personality are essential.
Access the video with the interviews here, on my Instagram.
How about starting your career again in the country considered the first in quality of life in the world? Talk to the BFF Exchange and we guide you in this first and important step, studying in Canada. Don't have English? There are no problems, as many of our students took English courses in Canada before starting college and today they are studying and doing very well.;) We have several English course options for all levels and also academic English ( Pathway) that prepares you for entry to college or university.
For more information about English courses, colleges or universities, write to daniely@https://bffcanada.com or send a message at Whatsapp +1 778 6825525.
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