A new company has launched to help Canadian companies find international talent as they scale.
Co-founded by TWG founder Dominic Bortolussi and Yousuf Khatib, the Global Skills Hub works to help companies find senior technical talent. The program was launched as a response to the government’s Global Skills Strategy, which allows Canadian businesses to process visas for international talent within two weeks.
“The Global Skills Hub model is rooted in empathy and inclusion and we plan to truly transform the immigration experience for companies and candidates.”
“In retrospect, the most important thing I ever did at The Working Group was to meet exceptional people and build great, authentic relationships. I knew that these were the people who could one day join us to become our future leaders,” said Bortolussi. “There is enormous value in unlocking the harmony of the right person, in the right role, aligned with the right team. At Global Skills Hub, I’m now excited to help remarkable people from around the world find their path to amazing growing Canadian companies.”
Khatib, who is acting as CEO of GSH, said the organization came to fruition following an ICTC study stating that there will be a tech talent shortage of 216,000 by 2021.
“As we delved deeper into understanding the challenges that Canadian companies were facing in tech recruitment, we realized a greater vision,” said Khatib. “Not only did companies need to source top talent, but companies also needed a cost-effective way to scale and also reduce the time-to-hire. By navigating the immigration process through the Global Skills Strategy and other programs, and tailoring technical, culture, and personality tests, we are providing our clients with a fast, reliable, and affordable way to hire top global technical talent.”
The Global Skills Hub will connect Canadian companies to vetted international candidates. Candidates fall into two categories: international engineering managers, full stack developers, data scientists, and machine learning engineers living outside North America with over five years’ experience; and international technologists with H-1B visas living in Silicon Valley and across the US who are looking for new opportunities in Canada due to the political uncertainty. The firm says that many of these candidates have worked in the ‘big five’ tech companies.
Candidates submit basic information through the Global Skills Hub website and are contacted by phone or Skype to start building out their profiles. Candidates are pre-vetted for English communication skills (via a phone interview with a GSH talent ambassador), senior level technical skills, and soft skills. The program allows companies to hire talent outside North America for three months to see if they’re a fit, before bringing the candidate to Canada under a 30-day work visa to work in-person.
Candidates can return home and continue working remotely while they prepare to relocate to Canada, while GSH manages the candidate’s visit, accommodation, and visa and work permit applications.
GSH contrasts itself against the typical recruiter model, which often charge an upfront fee of 20 to 25 percent of a candidate’s strategy. GSH charges a fee of $1,000 for 12 months once the candidate is hired full time, and covers the visa and work permit processing fees for all candidates coming from the US and abroad.
In the event that a candidate does not work out, the company stops paying the monthly fee and Global Skills Hub will identify and screen new candidates for that role.
“Newcomers are seeking a sense of belonging when settling in a new country and what inspires me most about Global Skills Hub is the opportunity to support these courageous individuals and their families on their journey to Canada and their integration into our society,” says Ivana Lochhead, VP of Growth at Global Skills Hub. “The Global Skills Hub model is rooted in empathy and inclusion and we plan to truly transform the immigration experience for companies and candidates.”
GSH has partnered with talent companies Plum.io and Filtered.AI to build out profiles of candidates and speed up hiring time. Plum focuses on building profiles with soft skills like work ethic and leadership potential, while Filtered.AI looks at candidate authentication, coding skill, and video interviewing.
Photo via Unsplash
