Refugee professionals: pushed to leave home behind to face career uncertainty ahead !

Refugee professionals:  pushed to leave home behind, to face career uncertainty ahead !

Mohamed Mennawi
abunommo@yahoo.com

Employers in the UK usually mix and confuse forced migrant professionals (refugees) and other skilled migrants who left their countries and made their way to the UK by choice. The net result  is always negative on refugee professionals’ employability levels in the UK job market.
 
The 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1976 Protocol made a clear distinction between a refugee and a migrant:

Refugees are forced to flee because of a threat of persecution and because they lack the protection of their own country. The most common reason is political pressure, persecution and targeting on ethnic grounds.

Migrants, in comparison, may leave his or her country for many reasons that are not related to persecution, such as for employment, family reunion or study. A migrant continues to enjoy the protection of his or her own government, even when abroad.  Migrants voluntarily went to foreign countries, because living conditions and opportunities for jobs are not good in their own countries - sometimes they are called economic migrants.

Virtually all refugees share one distinct characteristic: almost all come from the Third World and Middle East countries. There is one common factor between refugee and migrants: their shared desire is to find a place in the civilized free world, where there is a respect for fundamental human rights and where the economy is comparatively healthy and potential work opportunities exist.  

 Based on my short experience in the UK, economic migrants are usually advantaged over refugee professionals in the UK labour market, because for them the movement to UK is previously planned and had already explored, and - to some extent- better job opportunities. They do not have significant career gaps in their CVs, opposed to refugee professionals who normally waste time in the process of arriving in the UK, added to that the resettlement period  that the asylum seeker could wait for the Home Office decisions on his/her Case, from a couple of weeks to several years.
 
There are no UK statutory employment services at all for refugees, and for that reason, their ability to compete in this deregulated labour market is very tough.

There are a number of factors associated with professional refugees, which affect adversely their employment competitiveness:
• Interrupted career progress and CV gaps
• Lack of access to overseas references and lack of experience in the UK  job market , where referencing is of a paramount importance  
• Difficulty of applying to entry-level UK jobs due to over qualification and  vast experience and age  differences
• Lack of information , contacts , etc
• Job Centre Plus pressures on refugee professionals , to push them to search and accept any job , just to get them off and clear their records and shorten their lists of job seekers , for the purpose of meeting their own targets
• Some cultural and linguistic barriers, which are normally be overcome easily by  refugee professionals      

Glimpse of hope and a light at the tunnel:

In the absence of any government legislation, to positively deal with refugee professionals as stated earlier, a small organization of very limited resources was established in London in 2010 to support refugee professionals. Surprisingly, this organization is now doing a great job and started to attract the attention of refugee communities in London. Transitions  offers both information and advice, so that individuals can use that to enhance their career progression, and also offers direct services, including effective Job search workshops, internships that targeted to result in recruitment and gain UK experience .  

Personal experience:
Being one of Transitions candidates  and specialized in banking and finance over 15 years, with exposure and interest in international development, recently I attended a very fruitful workshop organized by Transitions, in co-ordination  with one of the Largest professional services companies in London , one of the Big Four. The workshop was intended to bring together a number of volunteering staff from the said Firm with equal number of Transitions candidates (refugee professionals) to engage themselves in one -to -one effective cross-cultural CV and interview skills. What impressed me in that workshop was the young age of the Firm’s participants and the level of high skills they demonstrated during the discussions, the issue that defeated the long standing misconception with some refugee professionals, that directly relates experience and skills to the number of years spent in service. One more interesting cultural issue came out of that meeting, when the group discovered that I am the only participant fasting Ramadan in that occasion, the incident created a combination of empathy and curiosity among some of the participants!
Empathy in the sense, the group felt that I am depriving myself from the refreshments and the lunch that has been served by the Firm. Regarding the curiosity, that was another interesting story. My partner in the 1-1 mock interview practice, asked me innocently and sincerely, if I could have postponed and suspended my fasting in that particular day, to cater for this occasion. I told him that, religiously that is not allowed, but he asked again (seriously this time) if we (Muslims) carry on fasting even during the weekends!
Such a question is of course quite valid in the predominantly Western Christian society with less experience in Islam , but it sounds funny in the Muslim societies, but the importance of such interaction is that , it creates  mutual cultural awareness and understanding , that I personally like!        
Mohamed Mennawi   London
August 4, 2013