Program helps foreign-trained engineers find jobs in Calgary

The Calgary Catholic Immigration Society has graduated a new crop of engineers.

The 15 immigrants have qualifications from their home countries, but couldn't finda job in Calgary because they lacked Canadian experience.

One of the new graduates of the upgrading program isBahar Soleimani, who wasan industrial engineer in Iran, but sold furniture after she came to Canada in 2014.

'Lucky' engineer offered placement

She didn't expect to get into the competitiveprogram offered by the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society.

"I learned that there are hundreds of people out there that wanted to get accepted in this program. I was really disappointed and I never believed that I was going to be one of them," she said.

"Wow, I was lucky. I was among those 15 people."

Through the program, she had a work placement with AECOM oil and gas.

Changing message

Coincidentally, her supervisor, Doug Shako, faced similar hurdles immigrating more than a decade ago.

"When I arrived, the message was,you're an engineer back home, don't try to be an engineer in Calgary."

Today, Shako says Soleimani's global experience is seen as an asset and his team has offered her a job.

Soleimanigraduated on Friday from the upgrading program and has two jobs to choose fromin her field of expertise.

"The outcome of this program was priceless," saidSoleimani.

CCIS has graduated about 450 engineers through the province-sponsored program since it began in 1994, according to Sholeh Mahdavi, the program's manager.

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