Three of the earliest participants in the Get Work Ready program have now completed their work placements. As a result of these placements, some of the ladies have been offered employment, which is a wonderful achievement for the individuals and the program that should be celebrated. However, not all the women have reached the end point of their journey to their career. As the program facilitator, Jaclyn Thompson gets to walk with the participants through the highs and lows.
“For some participants,” Jaclyn said, “not being offered employment after giving 110 per cent of themselves during the work placement is devastating.
“Even though they knew going into the placement that there was no guarantee of work at the end, it’s hard not to feel rejected or disheartened when the news arrives, especially when you see one of your peers being offered full-time work. You begin to think there is something wrong with you.”
Jaclyn said the truth is, migrant women face a variety of barriers to entering the Australian workforce.
“It could be described as a triple threat,” Jaclyn explains. “They’re migrants, which most often comes with language and cultural barriers. They’re women, which creates challenges such as juggling caring responsibilities with work and gender bias. And then to top it all off, their overseas education and work experience is not recognized or valued by employers.
“Even when someone has gone through the process of getting their qualification assessed as equivalent to the Australian one, there is still a tendency for employers to view this as inferior to an Australian qualification.”
The goal of the Get Work Ready program is not just to help migrant women to find a job, but to help employers to understand the benefits of hiring migrant women.
“The women who have joined our program so far are not only incredibly skilled, they are also hardworking, motivated, adaptable and resilient,” Jaclyn said.
“Those are skills that come from moving far away from your family and friends and overcoming any obstacles that are thrown at you without a safety net. You can teach someone how to write an email correctly or how to use a certain software, but you can’t teach determination or resilience. That’s the key takeaway for employers.”
If you would like to know more about this program, please contact Jaclyn on 07 4903 1931 or email jaclyn@integreatqld.org.au
Top picture: The Get Work Ready participants at their graduation with program coordinators Jaclyn Thompson and James Lankin.
