 Welcome everybody to our channel, Kierke Immigration Law, I'm an immigration lawyer and today we have a guest, it's Amy Andraos. Amy is actually a very good friend of mine, we've known each other I think since 1995, so it's been over 20, like 25 years and Amy is a guidance counsellor, she has her own firm, Salto Conce, and today I have a number of questions for Amy because a lot of what she does can be very helpful in the videos that we discuss in our practice as an immigration lawyer, as an immigration law firm, I often reach out to her for different situations with certain clients sometimes to get her feedback, I used to also use her services for recruitment aspects, and she's wonderful, she's amazing, she always has the right answers, so Amy what I'm going to do is I'm going to let you introduce yourself, maybe you could tell us a little bit about exactly what you do, your professional title and what type of services your office offers. Sure, well thanks for having me first of all, so yeah our firm is called the Salto Conce, we do different types of things in the field of guidance counselling, so really we assist people in finding the job that best fits their personality, we assist people in changing jobs if they're not comfortable anymore where they are and that could be for a number of reasons, it could be because life brings us different challenges, what if I had an accident and I can't do the job I used to do, what if I just had a child and I realized that my new mom life doesn't fit with the old job I used to have, what if I'm close to retirement and wondering what am I supposed to do with my time once I stop working, so all of these questions are things that we look at with our clients, it could also be really entering the workforce, some people know exactly what they want to do but they can't seem to find the job or they can't seem to really keep the job, so we help them with anything that could be looking for a job or updating their CV, their LinkedIn profile or doing a good interview so that they get selected, so that's different things that we work on, we also do a bit of recruitment like you said earlier and what else is it that we do, really anyone that could be indecisive about questions regarding their career, so that's mostly what we do and we're based here in Montreal, Quebec and right now I think you're in your office, I am in my office, so right now it's the pandemic, COVID-19, I'm in my home obviously, so you do a variety of different services, it encompasses a lot of different things. I'm very lucky to be working with a team of five other counselors, so six people total that have different expertise, so it allows us to really work within the same field but in different aspects of that field. Nice, and you have an order that regulates guidance counselors. Exactly, so it's l'ordre des conseillères d'orientation de Québec, some of my staff is member of different orders, so we have une conseillère en ressources mènes agréées, so from l'ordre des conseillères ressources mènes agréées and we have other people that aren't members of orders, so les conseillères en emploi, so these people are really people that help with employment, so really entering the workforce. Nice, and how long have you been practicing as a guidance counselor? I've been a member of the order since 2011, but really working in the field really since 2006. Nice, and could you tell us a little bit about the studies that you completed to become a guidance counselor? So I started out with a bachelor of science in psychology and then did a master's of education in guidance counseling. I find when I know about guidance counselors because of you, I mean the only other thing I knew in the past was usually someone in the school and in high school for example that used to answer student questions and do some tests, but what I've learned over the years with you is that it's so broad, it's so important and often people won't think about that when they need services. Why do you think that is? That's a very interesting question. I think, well first of all we're not that many people, so in the order we're 2,600 people, so in Olive Covec, that's really not a big population. So that's the first reason, not many people know a guidance counselor so then they don't really have that exact information. The other reason is that it's a job that used to only exist in schools. Originally the job was created in wartime, so during the war people would test the new soldiers to figure out what part of the army they should be in, so that image of really I'm testing you and telling you what you should do, it comes from somewhere. Historically that's what the job used to be like 60 years ago, right? I'm seeing 60 but it's probably not the right number, but during wartime let's say, but since let's say maybe the last 30, 40 years the work has really evolved a lot and gotten very wide and very broad and so that image of the guidance counselor in the schools is not false. I mean it's about 50% of the guidance counselors but then again the others because there's so little of them, sometimes we don't know what they do or we don't even know that they exist. So it's a yeah, like you said I think a profession really worth knowing about because I really do think that we are an asset to the society. Oh definitely, I've done the process myself at some stage in my career where I was thinking of maybe teaching law in a CJEP or university and I found the process extremely interesting. I learned a lot about myself. There's a lot of self introspection that goes on with that, it's like a little bit of therapy at the same time, you have to look into what you want to do and what your qualities are and your strengths and it was quite amazing. I'm always surprised when people tell me this because to me it's like my bread and butter, it's what I do but we're not psychotherapists so I'm not allowed to say that we do therapy but it does have a therapeutic feel what we do because we do look at the entire person before thinking of what they should be doing. Exactly. Now if you could briefly describe to us your day-to-day work like maybe a typical day at the office for you? I would say maybe I could divide it in two types of typical days. A typical day really as a guidance counselor in a private practice would be seeing clients. So for me it varies quite a bit, it could go from four clients a day to seven clients a day, seven is a bit much, I try to not do it too often because that's seven hours of counseling. But from four to seven a day different people, different needs, different things to assess and discuss so that could be a typical day just really being in sessions with clients. Another type of typical day could be really more business oriented for me because I don't work alone and because I have a small firm then there's a whole like checking the bills and paying stuff and answering potential clients and answering counselors questions and doing networking and marketing and ambulance just passed by. So the entrepreneur side of things. Exactly. So that would be mostly what I do with my work time piece. And you find this time correctly you mainly work in French but you can also offer services in English. Exactly. I usually work in French so that's why you'll hear me stutter quite a bit today but I'd say maybe 10 to 20 percent of our clientele is Anglophone. Oh nice, very nice. And what tool do you use in your work? So that's a good question. We use a lot of statistics. We use a lot of numbers mostly statistics linked to the labor market. So those stats are provided by the government so the Quebec government or the Canada government or the Canadian government to see so let's say this job XYZ whatever is it in demand? How in demand is it? How much does it pay? In what fields do they usually work? So that's a lot of the tools that we use are really stats. Another tool that we can use is really known LinkedIn. We do a lot of research. We do a lot of okay you'd like to be like this person what has this person done so looking at different profiles. We also use there's information banks where jobs are described so it helps us describe the reality of the market to different people that are looking at different jobs. And another tool that we use from time to time is psychometric testing. So the tests I think are kind of mythical in the mind of certain people a lot of people think that I'll pass a test and then it'll tell me who I am and what I should be doing and it does have a bit of a magical thing to it but it's really a statistics again. So psychometric testing it's really a case by case thing. We always look at if it's necessary to use that type of a tool with someone or if it isn't and if it is usually measure three types of thing and we can measure interests so what do you like what are you not like we can measure personality so that's basically that there's different theories about personality and all theories kind of all say that there's different personality types and say that because we're human beings and we're complex and complicated we probably all have all of the types of personality inside ourselves but at different levels. So personality testing is really used to see so what type of personality seems to be the loudest in this person. And the last type of testing is aptitude testing and so that's to see how good you are at different tasks so it could be very general how good are you at languages at math but it could be also very specific so how quickly can you do this thing with your fingers how quickly could you fix a puzzle how quickly could you write how quickly could you type on a computer so that's all kinds of testing that we could do for different situations. It's so interesting I remember when I did my sessions with the guidance counselor it it was really revealing that for me I like there was I think it was like what you mentioned three things working with people working with ideas and working with things right and for me it was very obvious that it was working with people and working with ideas and it explained a lot why I don't like computer stuff and you know I'm an immigration lawyer and we do you know everything is administrative and forms and what it made me realize is my team we need to have people that really like enjoy doing that administrative part of part of paperwork some part I enjoy I mean I enjoy like let's say photocopying you know at the printer I enjoy that or scanning but I don't enjoy opening a PDF document and writing things and then it doesn't work I just I get and then it made me feel better understanding that it's not because I'm impatient or because I don't want to learn it's just it's not my personality that's why I really enjoy doing consultations and strategizing on the different files so it was very enlightening this is a bit of a random thing yesterday I was listening to a Brené Brown podcast and she was interviewing someone about in your in your grams I don't know if you've heard that you're talking about nine personalities is that have to do anything with your testing or that's completely separate and so linear grammar I only know in French I'm not a specialist so I don't want to I don't want to say stuff that's not correct there might be tests that exist but originally if I understand it properly it's really a theory it's really a way of seeing personality yes that's what they were saying it was very fascinating it's very interesting very very interesting yes um what what made you get into this field oh that's uh yeah that's a whole story um so I've always known that I wanted to help people for a living and but there's different ways of helping right so being a being a kid really finishing high school um I was advised by by the the school principle to go into psychology and I think uh that's an advice that a lot of people give uh kids that are interesting in helping in helping people because psychology is kind of like the most known field of counseling right so I went into psychology and while I was doing my bachelor's degree I was enjoying it it was very interesting to me but at the same time I I was doing different things I was playing music I was traveling I was doing humanitarian projects and um I was really enjoying all these other things and wondering if I really wanted to stay in psychology or if I wanted to do something different maybe more creative maybe um maybe more um like factual I wasn't sure I was really confused and I went to to my father who was a very wise man and told him I'm confused I don't know what I want to do I might stop school I might do this little site program and think about it and he was like no that's not what you're gonna do so being the strict immigrant man that he was and so he advised me to go and meet with a guidance counselor so I went and I did the process and I thought it was fascinating what he was doing and I thought it was I really liked his approach and I really liked how is it was linked to psychology that I did enjoy but at the same time it had this very like grounded feel it was really like concrete right there was really you're thinking this this is what we could do it was really um there's a methodology but there's a methodology and it's very action oriented yeah and that really spoke to me so so yeah I decided to to take up the masters in in guidance counseling and that's how it happened well I didn't know that was the process that's so cool to know yeah yeah and I was very lucky to to eventually work with that man that was my getting my guidance counselor and then when they even take his office at the University of Malaga oh that's amazing yeah yeah wow cool um what would you say is the best and worst part of your job um the best part of my job is kind of linked to what I just said um you can see a direct effect of your work on people and that is really really rewarding to see someone who's uncomfortable at work and eventually find some kind of of well-being and some kind of excitement about their job is really really validating really really rewarding so I think that that's really the best part of what I do um the worst part um you gave me the questions beforehand so I thought about it and it was really hard for me to to figure out that part because I really do enjoy my job um but I think the worst part is realizing that you can't help everyone yeah and I'm sure that's something that you must feel in in your job as well and there's people that aren't ready for change there's people that aren't able to change for different reasons sometimes life isn't so easy and it's not always possible to to get what you want and so I find that there's a lot of work that we can do anyways with everyone there's always things that we can look at there's always little things that we can tweak so that you feel better better in your day-to-day work life but um but sometimes it's hard to see that uh that work can be a lot of suffering to certain people and you can't always fix it and I feel we are the type of people that are helpers so when you know want to kind of help everybody whoever comes to see us but like you said uh same thing in our office you know sometimes people come and we want to help but there's no way there's just because of the situation the immigration status it's and I'm very honest I could say I want to help you but I can't and I find now after many years of practice it's easier to say bluntly I'm sorry I can't help you whereas in the beginning it was like let me try to figure things out and but but it's actually better for the client to to have a very straightforward answer for them you know and often also I think it's it's a it's very professional to have the the humility to say uh that maybe I'm not the right person to help you right now you need another type of help maybe it could be looking at your finances maybe it could be looking towards therapy maybe it could be different steps that you need to do before looking at your career or immigration in your case but uh yeah I think it's very important to know that we can't do everything right exactly exactly um so can you tell us a little bit about how you assist someone who comes and see someone comes and sees you and they want to do a career change what would kind of briefly be the steps um of course it's always very different from from person to person because everybody's needs are different but um generally speaking we could see three major steps the first step is really introspection it's really figuring out who you are what you need where you're at right now in your life what is central what is essential um once that's done once we have the essence of who you are and kind of what you need to be focusing on in your search then we go to the second step that's exploration so exploration is really looking at what's out there and so it could be looking at the labor market it could be looking at different programs if you're about to go back to school or about to go to school for the first time so it's really about seeing what exists and what could match what I just said that was interesting that was important to me so in that step it's really important to not focus on one single goal because you never know what life brings you right so maybe we'll have a plan A and a B and a C and a D and once we have a couple of plans that might work then we bring that to the last step that is action so action is really the game plan so what are we doing if I want to get to this position what am I supposed to do am I supposed to go back to school if so do I have the grades if so do I have the background am I supposed to meet people that have that job and discuss with them so that I can get known is am I supposed to get a bit of money before so that I can be able to so so that I'll be able to afford my studies so it's like really looking at the feasibility so how is it how reachable that project is and really figuring out how exactly to do it when am I applying what's the deadline how much is it going to cost how much is it going to bring me so it's also in that step that we try to encourage people to meet with professionals that do the job that interests them so that they can discuss okay I imagine the job to be like this but when you do it on a random Friday morning you wake up and you turn on your computer what happens next in your day right so discussing with with people that are really in the field and is kind of the the key element at the end that can show you if you saw it correctly if this is something that could be worth it for you or if maybe you should be looking at something else wow very interesting um it's a whole process it's a whole process and usually there's process in how many sessions it varies a lot um in our firm I'd say between four and six sessions but for some people some people like to take their time and like to look at many things it could be 20 sessions it really depends on the person and the session will be approximately an hour yeah 15 minutes to an hour nice and um I just thought of this what about situations where people enjoy their jobs but there's aspects they don't enjoy so for example in the immigration law world I have a lot of immigration lawyer friends a lot of um paralegal paralegals law clerks legal assistants throughout my career when I before I opened my practice I've made a lot of friends and some of them work in places where they love the work they love helping people they love immigration law they like working on the applications even though immigration can be very chaotic they enjoy the challenges but they don't like the work environment in terms of the hours and the very stressful demanding um caseloads and things like that so what can someone do or how could you help someone like this that's a very interesting question and it's something that we see very often certain theories say that work can be kind of broken down in three big notions right so it's the work environment and the method so how do you do what you're supposed to do and um the tasks so what am I actually doing uh so in any of those three sections something could go wrong right let's say I don't like where I work I don't like my colleagues I don't like my job my my boss sorry I don't like um physically where it is I've seen people that say I work in a basement I can't see sunlight I'm sick of it you know and some people could say so that's like really physically where you are some people could say I don't like how things are run it's too chaotic like you said or it's too the hours are crazy or there's too many meetings I want to just sit down and focus right uh or it could be the tasks it could be I think I could do more than what is asked of me I think or it's too hard where they're asking me to do I can't do it it's too complicated or I'm not interesting I'm not interested in let's say um entering data in an excel sheet so any of these three um the parts of work could hurt someone and make them uncomfortable in their job and so what we do really depends it really really depends sometimes it could be changing your perspective maybe you can learn to not care so much what your boss says or the tone she uses sometimes it could be well maybe this is unacceptable and maybe you're being bullied and maybe this is harassment and you should leave sometimes it could be um well what can I do to minimize maybe it's better if I write letters or emails instead of uh talking face to face with this person that's problematic to me so there's really a million there's as many answers as there are problems I think right and I feel uh you can confirm this I feel with the COVID-19 there's a lot of people that are going to revisit and rethink their work environment and their situations because I feel the world has kind of come to a pause and we're realizing how fast-paced stressful life we were living and I I feel some people might be like well do I still want to do this job or do I still want to do it like this you know I think there's a major shift that's coming um I can't be sure of anything I don't have a crystal ball or anything but I know that already you see a lot of uh of businesses um deciding that maybe you don't they don't need to rent such a huge office maybe they can have a lot of people working remotely and the performance is still there they're still working very well and I think a lot of people are realizing that if I'm not spending three hours a day commuting and just having three hours more to work or to spend time with my family or to do sports or to play music or whatever well maybe my life is better if I do it that way so I think a lot is going to change I don't know exactly how or when or if it's going to be a stable change or if it's going to go back to how it used to be because profit is very important in our society um I think a lot of people are right now at home and wondering wondering what it is that they want out of life and out of their jobs I think a lot of people are concerned also about the environment and the impact that all this commuting has on the planet um this might be a personal thing but I think a lot of people share that view um and so yeah I think it will have an impact what we're going through right now I'm not sure exactly how but definitely I hope uh that positive changes come out of the so difficult situation that we're in for me personally when I I go for walks and I see parents flying kites with their children I see artists in the forest painting never seen that in my neighborhood I see neighbors doing projects they've been finally have the time to do it and even us me and my husband at home you know we have let's say patio furniture we're wanting to paint for so long and now it's like okay let's go on youtube and see how we can actually do this it's just I find we have the gift of time and then we realize how precious it is nowadays um could you tell us a little bit about your cultural background your upbringing and how this shaped you in the terms of in terms of how you communicate and work with your clients um yes so I'm a I'm a child of immigrants um my parents immigrated to Canada in the 70s from Egypt um so I think I'm a I think I'm a pretty typical child of immigrants in the sense that I I had the privilege to be introduced at the same time to two cultures um I had my family's culture that was like brought to me in everyday life right in the kitchen and with my family and the parties and the parties and church and life and at the same time while I was going to school and I had friends in the neighborhood and so I discovered the Canadian culture and and Quebec culture as well and and so as an immigrant's child I think yeah I had the luxury of of picking and choosing what parts of which culture I wanted to keep and which part of which cultures I felt like giving back to to people who were offering it to me so um how does that influence me today um I think I'm very lucky to have seen in depth both these cultures and understood uh why and how they came about and of course it's like very complex I'm not an expert but I I've lived them so I have that experience and um how it impacts how I deal with people I think maybe there's a sense of empathy that that can be there towards uh maybe an immigrant clientele or a children of immigrants who are really who I'm closest to um and just I'm in Montreal right then it's a very diverse city and I think okay my parents are from Egypt but I think a lot of immigrants have um stories that can resemble each other right so the stories of coming with nothing and trying to make your life free for yourself and building something and yeah I think I have maybe that sensitivity sensitivity to it might not be that easy right yes exactly I find uh a bit similar to you because of my cultural background um I was born in in Montreal um my mother's born in Armenia my father's born in Syria my grandparents everybody's Armenian but they were from Lebanon and uh lived in certain areas where it was controlled by by Turkey so there's a mixture of all these different cultures and I find that in the work that I do now it really helps me in the way I communicate and deal with clients so for example you know if I have a family from Lebanon that comes into my office I know that they don't need me to get into the point right away we need to chitchat a little bit we need to ask you know where you're from what do you do what's your story and talk about the weather and in the beginning I used to kind of fight that when I first became a lawyer but now I've completely switched and I actually really enjoy that part of my work because I feel I can really relate and um me personally as a lawyer I I often bring my own personal experiences it's not every profession that can do that but I bring my own personal experiences of my life with the clients and I find it's just creates like this human interaction and I'm actually very grateful that I have this background and that I can give back to my clients in this way um okay now um do you work a lot with newly arrived immigrants um at the beginning of my career when I had when I was actually still finishing my masters I did uh I worked in a in an ONG that did only that worked with the immigrants and people that were newly arrived um I did that for maybe uh a year less than a year and then started working in different other aspects of my field and so today no not so much I really see that many new comers um because um there's really great um government programs that offer the same services as me but that specialize with um new new new uh immigrants but also better free and so when somebody calls me um and that fits that profile I tend to just refer them to to to those organizations because they're so great at what they do and I don't feel comfortable charging someone for for that type of service if they can get it somewhere else for free and I've learned that with you because and I think for a long time I would often call you and be like this client has this issue can you help and you'd be like no I mean I can but there's this organization that are so now I know exactly when to contact you uh when I have certain inquiries so uh and it was great for me to know that you know you specialize in one thing you don't know it's great to know that there's so many services out there because in our work we do immigration applications but clients will ask us questions about employment about how to get their SIN number how to get the health care coverage how to apply for a job um can they buy property and what about accounting so it's really good as an immigration lawyer to have these different referral systems so that we can if we can't help at least we can refer the client to the right person um related to our practice in immigration law do you offer any services to foreign nationals outside Canada who are interested in moving to Canada so for example like a student let's say you get a phone call it says I live in Abu Dhabi I want to come to Canada and I'm thinking of studying this program can you help me so it's not a service that we promote very much because it's not our main clientele but we have worked with people in other countries we worked with people in Colombia people in Mexico and people in France mostly so it was always related to studies so it was always like this is the background I have this is the grades that I have can I get into this or that program and then discussed how we could assist them in finding out where to find the information because we're not the admission recruiters at universities or at cjeps so our job is really to say okay this is the the information that we can find because sometimes it's a bit hard to digest when you're not from from the country so this is the information we have this is how to understand it now to have further information here's who you should contact yes to really see what's possible for you in your situation and that could be very helpful because you know if somebody googles study in Canada they'll have a bunch of things but if they speak to you you might just just point them to the right direction and they could have a call this school this registration department and that that's already a big step forward for them right um what about and this happens a lot uh in our world um I mean I don't do a economic immigration applications uh but we do get inquiries and I have a referral system but I hear a lot from other colleagues who discuss this they get phone calls from people or inquiries that say I'm a doctor in my country I'm a pharmacist I'm an engineer I want to come to Canada um I have my papers I've become a permanent resident maybe through points or through a spousal sponsorship application um and I want to work in my field so can you help someone in this situation so this is a very um a very common question um and it's very delicate because it's so different depending on the field of that person um we can help very quickly by answering when it's when it's a profession that it that has an order that has a professional order it's very simple the order decides whether you can have the title or not so depending on the studies you've done depending on the country you're from where you did your studies what uh professional experience you have it's going to vary so the the quick answer is contact the order and they'll tell you exactly what you need to do or what's missing some orders are more proactive than others some are really quick they kind of give you um like a prescription okay so in your in your um file this is what we see so this is what you're missing this is what you should go get apply here there this is what you do other orders may take more time to answer but they're always the ones that you should be contacting for other fields that don't have an order then more research needs to be done because the market is ever changing and we always need to look at um will you be able to access the workforce right away when you get into the country or not also one thing that's very important to mention is that the information that I have is really based on uh the the Quebec labor market um so it might vary from the province to province and it's important for people uh to know as well that every province has its own requirements um so for example myself I'm licensed in both Quebec and Ontario but to do that I had to a lot of different criterias and it was not so much necessarily complex but there's a methodology and system you have to go through so you know when someone calls and says I want to immigrate to Canada okay well which province do you want if it's Quebec there's French do you want to go to British Columbia it's a whole other set of rules so that's also something to consider when when you're thinking about coming to Canada um what about entrepreneurs so successful businessmen outside Canada they've been running their business for 10 15 years it could be you know a garage a jewelry store it could be import export they they they're business people and they know how to run the show over there uh so they they want to come here or they're here and they want to do the same thing how what's your experience how does it kind of go for them again I would say it needs a little bit of research because the market is different everywhere and I don't know what if I was um what if my business was uh in the Caribbean and it was um renting out boats uh to tourists well if you're in Montreal there's not a lot of boat rental going on so um so it's always about seeing if your business is transferable here uh then there's a bunch of other questions that are really purely financial so any business owner whether it be a newcomer or not um we'll have to face those really financial challenges so do you have the money do you have the time to invest in building something from scratch do you so those are all questions that need to be looked at really in a case-by-case manner and related to that what would you say um is the biggest challenge when someone wants to move to Canada and find employment to find and the employment portion that's really interesting I wish there was a single answer I'm going to be boring and say the exact same thing as before it really depends it really depends let's say uh we see what's going on right now with COVID-19 there's a crazy need for nurses there's a crazy need for um I don't know how you say it in English but les préposés aux bénéficiaires uh yes uh nurses hospital um we'll find we'll find that we'll find workers maybe yeah so basically it's like in the whole hierarchy of um of nursing there's many different steps and les préposés aux bénéficiaires are one of them so there are people that care that are in direct contact with patients and that tend to their basic basic needs so anything that could be like feeding people or bailing them or um like just moving them around taking them out for a walk talking to them so they're like an essential part of the the workforce and we need them like we really need them and we don't have enough right now and um so today with everything that's happening if someone were to say I'd like to immigrate to Canada and this is a job I've been doing then they'd have a great advantage and would like enter the workforce really quickly um I think I hope I think um but in other fields then maybe it wouldn't be this easy so how do you enter the workforce it really depends it really depends on what you do but like for everything else I think there's some key things that could be looked at for example um networking the more people you know in your field the more chances you have of finding something and in certain fields it could be interesting to do volunteer work just to get your name running and just so that people know your face and remember you when they actually have a job offer coming up and it could also be in certain fields you have no choice and you have to go back to school so it's really a really good it's really going to depend yeah um we we often get asked the question you know people call us in this for example oh I'm from Costa Rica I'm here on a visit for four months and eventually I'm thinking of staying here uh and they start applying for jobs sometimes right away and then they they they come see us and they're like well I can't find anything so the advice that I usually give is well you know exactly like that like try to meet people do interviews understand the culture by living here doing certain activities you meet people and that might lead to something but it's never you know I think sometimes people think like Canada the land of the dreams and everything comes easy they hear things right so for example I had a a client who came from the Middle East and he had a big import export business very successful and I remember when he first came to see us he he had seven he has seven children and he wanted to um to work right away and he was so enthusiastic and so excited and every week I would see him and as the weeks went by the enthusiasm just went down and down and down because he realized everywhere he tried to go there was walls because of the French and uh or the English and uh and then you see that kind of devastation in their face and it's hard for me because you know what I don't do what you do and uh I try to give tips and advice and now what I say the only thing I say is well learn the languages wait especially if it's the winter time I'm like wait till the winter passes summer will come you'll feel better uh and then what I notice happens is the children go to school which is amazing and they end up learning French and English quite well so every time I see them in my office the children they're so good at the languages and they start helping with the paperwork but some parents become better with the languages and some parents they're just refused they just they they don't they don't want to go to school and uh and I often tell them well language is where you start right so what do you think about that I think especially being here in Quebec French is major it's super important to at least speak a little bit of French if you want to find work you will be able to find work potentially without the French but it's about 10 times harder if you don't speak it so French is really really exactly like you said that's very good advice a place to start most definitely also to remember that again there's a whole network of organizations that teach French but that also help with finding jobs so by going there you could learn French you could learn how to look for a job but you could also network you could also meet new people you could also and these organizations often have also links with different companies so they might know that this company always needs people you could go you could start working there because as soon as you get that one Quebec experience on your CV it's always a little bit easier to find the second job after because um I guess for uh for different employers it gives them that kind of confidence of like okay so somebody else trusted them with the work they're probably a trustworthy person I should I should try um and I find it fascinating now that I'm uh at this stage in my career sometimes I think of my grandmother she lived here for over 40 years and she just knew like five words in French and like four words in English like oui chéri oui okay oui yes oui bonjour and it's crazy because if you want you could really bypass learning anything because of the multiculturalism you could just stay with the same people in your family and just never have to learn but if you make that effort in the beginning uh which is hard uh things can be very different for you and I think also times maybe have changed since uh since your grandmother's generation where maybe women tended to stay more at home and tend to the children and the family um now most women work right so if you intend on working then again the language will be central to you finding what you're looking for and the good thing now with the Quebec government is that they actually pay you to go and learn French um so that's pretty amazing it's like not only do you don't have to pay but we will pay you go and learn uh so I think that was a great program a great incentive for people to to go and learn the language yeah it's a plus for everyone yeah um so I'm from Montreal I lived in Toronto for five years uh that's where I opened my business and I came back to Montreal and now I live back in Montreal and having lived in both cities I I feel I have two homes and because I really lived in Toronto for five years I I I could see the the biggest differences between Montreal and Toronto so what I tell people when they ask me a lot of clients be like oh I want to come to Canada should I go to Montreal should I go to Toronto it's funny to me because it's so different it's such a they kind of make it seem like oh here or there but it's really for me it's two separate worlds so what I tell people is for me Montreal is more laid back it's more easy going it's more friend not I don't want to say friendly but it's Toronto is actually really really friendly too even more sometimes more than Montreal it's more like that um laid back cultural European style lifestyle where yes we work hard people work hard here but people really value the time with family and not this kind of go go go lifestyle for me personally what I experience in Toronto is a very very very fast paced uh culture city innovation um buildings going up all the time every time I go if I go you know three months later there's a whole new building and for me personally I found the very very fast pace and the distances are so big you know if you anytime I wanted to go see a friend it was like at least an hour or more um and in Montreal if you live in Montreal Island it's maybe 15 20 minutes so in that sense I find those differences the other differences in terms of economy obviously Toronto is much better economy than Montreal that's what I find I find if you want opportunities and challenges to grow and expand uh and also in terms of like um innovation like if I look at law firms in Toronto how they function and I look at certain law firm many law firms here sometimes it's like in the we're like back in the middle ages over here compared to over there so for me those are the differences that I that I see um so if I ask you uh because you know our clients are from everywhere in the world and they want to immigrate I mean to other provinces too but often it's Montreal or Toronto what's your impression um well I don't have that big of a knowledge of what's going on in Toronto uh I think what you said is probably how I would see it in a kind of um very general way uh I think regarding the job market uh the labour market I think it's very again depending on the field there's booming fields in Montreal that don't exist anywhere else in Canada for example when you think of artificial intelligence it's a hub here in Montreal um that doesn't exist in other places right when you think of um of the gaming industry the soft yes of course so um it is said that Montreal is the the capital of the gaming industry in the world so um so there's a lot going on in Montreal that doesn't exist uh in other places as for the culture aspect um Quebec has always had its own culture um and so yes for sure it's very different from what you'll find in Toronto um I'm not sure I can really generalize and say that um one is red and one is blue or like I think it's very it depends on where you are even on just the island of Montreal you change neighborhoods and the feel is completely different so um I think if people have the chance of visiting both and seeing how they feel in both cities I think it's always the best way of choosing but then again not everyone has that opportunity but um they're very very different they're very different for sure but again really regarding the work environment there's research to be done some fields are like you said much more advanced in Toronto and some are more advanced in Montreal or just maybe might fit more with the quality of life that some people might be looking for very interesting um now let's talk about the current present situation a little bit about COVID-19 um what are your thoughts about how future employment uh in Canada or in Quebec will be affected um post COVID so this is a very interesting but difficult question again this is ongoing we're May 29th 2020 um Montreal is still a red zone Montreal is still uh confined for the most part we don't know what's going to happen that's like my disclaimer to start out with everything's kind of up in here um what I think so this is all a hypothesis but what I think might happen is um remote work I think will be much more present will be normalized I think uh it won't be like just like this one guy in the office that doesn't come to the office I think it'll be I think it would be kind of a bit of a hypocrite thing for bosses to say no no I need you to be at work five days a week you've seen that people are competent and are um able to to perform remotely so I think that just also financially it'll be easier for some small businesses to not have to pay for rent and for commercial rent um so I think that's one thing that's going to change um I think some some industries will suffer for many years uh when you think of culture and uh arts and tourism I think we'll have a rough time uh getting back to where they were it's important to know that um we were at at full employment really before COVID-19 um now some people say that it used to be an employee's market and that it will turn into an employer's market because so many people lost their jobs I think we're now at 17 17 percent um of unemployment yes I think let me I should verify that's that but I think that's what I heard today um and before COVID it was I think we were at 4.5 percent uh which is basically everybody that wanted to work or that could work was working right um so it doesn't mean that it was good jobs and it doesn't mean that it was the jobs that people wanted but it meant that people were working so now a lot of once we deconfine a lot of people are just going to go back to the job the job they had but it's important to know that the Quebec market is built of small companies I think about um 80 percent of the market is small companies so those are the companies that are at risk right now um and that might not reopen so if they can't uh make it through the storm then these people are going to be looking for work and so that's why we don't know what's going to happen because we don't know who's not going to survive and we don't know who's going to be looking and we don't know if they're all going to be looking in one field or if it's going to be really dispersed or it's hard to tell so I think some industries will be hit more than others uh for obvious reasons let's say you're um a professional dancer well yes you could do because we're all talking about doing things online digitalizing work but uh someone dancing on a stage will never have the same feel that someone dancing on my tiny little screen right so um before we can um have people grouped together in a small room to watch a show it's going to take time and that's going to hurt some industries um so we just don't know for how long or how exactly but I think that's mainly what we'll see I think about uh the dance world so myself I dance salsa and I mostly dance tango and it's such a hobby of mine and it's such a passion of mine um before COVID-19 I was dancing um three four times a week lessons me longas evenings where you go dance close embrace you know and now everything is shut down I haven't uh dance I dance sometimes with my husband but it's not the same as going to a milonga where you dance with like 10 15 different partners in one night and you're socialized and I know a lot of tango teachers and everybody's trying to do online courses and things like that but it's very very very difficult because you know learning tango online it's so hard because you you have to be physically present to feel and touch it and know how to make the moves uh and the tango schools you know they they already they function because the the directors or the owners they do it because they're passionate about it and you know when you go to tango it's like five dollars ten dollars so they're already kind of barely surviving in terms of you know the art artist world and now with this nobody goes um you can't and a lot of in the tango community a big percentage of people are over 70 and 80 years old so they're also the at-risk people but those people really needed tango in their life you know so badly so I'm I'm concerned as to what's going to happen with the salsa teachers tango teachers the shows and things like that and I think like you said they're they're going to be very affected and I don't know if in the future people will be comfortable going to a milonga and close embrace cheek to cheek dancing tango uh I I'm hopeful that things will get better and that we can get back to that because it's it offers such a good quality of life you know and there's many different theories as to how we'll go back to normal how normal used to be um some people say that we have to wait for for vaccination right so once the vaccine is is out there then everybody's safe and we can go back to doing what we used to do some people are saying that it'll be about testing so they were describing like this type of machine that you could put let's say at airports so right before you board a plane you would like put your finger in or something and then it would say instantly if you have COVID-19 or not test everybody entering a milonga then you could say you're everybody here is clean guys we're good so it might be futuristic it might be just a theory we don't know yet but there's there's a lot of scientists and there there's a lot of people working on these solutions right um in terms of more individualistic uh part what what are you seeing in terms of people's reaction to COVID like confinement relationship productivity what has been your experience um again it varies a lot I'd say um it's important to remember that human beings are social beings so being cut from the world is very hard on certain people and there's a lot of suffering going on and it's very quiet suffering because everybody's alone and not necessarily talking about it um and get this weird the distorted vision of the world through social media where everybody posts like the bread that they baked and the exercise that they're doing and the beautiful achievements but some people are at home seeing all this beauty and thinking people are doing great stuff and I'm here and I'm not feeling well so there's a lot of loneliness I think that's one thing that we see um there's people reevaluating their lives like we've said before thinking that maybe maybe I like this lifestyle of going slower and spending more time with my family or exercising or doing things that I love so I think people are some people are reassessing I think on some families it's hard um because it's it's hard to care for a child 24-7 people say that it takes a village to to raise a child and there's no more village right now people are alone with their children and that can cause different issues and especially when these people are asked to work whole time at the same time it's hard to to be a perfect parent and a perfect employee at the same time it's impossible so it's um it's hard for people also to realize that they're not superheroes and they can only do what they can do um so that's what I'm hearing mostly there's a lot of doubt and there's a lot of people are scared and are wondering um how it'll be once we decompine um some people are hopeful uh like we said before I also hope that there's positive change that comes out of this some people are really thinking of the environment and thinking well it's a good thing that we're pausing all this madness that we're usually doing and hopefully we don't pick up where we left off and and find new ways of doing what we used to do I find for me personally um the even though I I try not to do the over productive thing it I don't know why it just kind of takes over because I think when we're not used when we don't have that social aspect of our lives like for example last week I went to the backyard of a very good friend of mine and we had a social distancing conversation and you know just hang out for two hours when I came home I didn't feel that need to do all the stuff I have to do because I just felt more relaxed because you know I I think when we don't have that part we started just filling up the time with a lot of things so um so there's a lot of things going on you know in our law firm where we moved out of our office we're moving into a new office and I'm currently pregnant having a baby in September preparing a baby room you know house projects and at the same time staff working remotely from home there's a lot to do but I find it's like good and bad you know in a way it's like oh now I have the time to do all these good things that's amazing but then what happens is there could be a burnout you know it could be just like you do so much and then you're just like oh why am I so tired and it's like well you're pregnant and you're doing all this stuff and it's so I'm trying to be mindful and be like you know it's not a race and just one step at a time and I think uh one of my friends was telling me there's two types of people during COVID the people that end up just being really relaxed and taking the time and there's the people that are just like overproductive and just they can't stop being productive yeah I think um I think we are who we are and even in a crisis we still are who we are and I think people that tend to work hard and maybe sometimes too much will do so in a time like this and I think people that are uh used to being more mindful will be mindful of this particular situation but uh it's it's like you said it's a good moment to reflect on that and maybe think about what it is that we actually want exactly um so a couple more questions before we conclude um could you give us one success story from someone who seek your services and there's there's a lot of success stories not because we're great we are great but not because we're great but because I think human beings have this beautiful asset that is to reinvent themselves um when they need to and when they want to um so success stories uh I could tell you about small changes or big changes um we often think of a success story being like a huge change for example I worked once with a man who uh was in the financial world for a long time he worked in in banks and insurance companies and was like always looking at numbers and thinking about money and so finance really and um when they realized that he he spent all of his weekends at chalets or camping in the woods and he was like why am I spending all this time in nature is it because it's calming me down from my job or is it because I just really enjoy being out there in nature and he realized that he really liked being active and he really likes being physical and he really liked being outside and he was just sick of working inside and realizing this he completely changed his focus and decided to quit his job go back to school at 43 45 something like that um years old and uh decided to become so I'm gonna mess up the term but um so water technician really so now he works for the city and make sure that that we're drinking clean and and good water so so he's out um like he gets calls in the middle of the night and quick quick go look at this water line and he fixes things and does testing on the water to see if the chemistry is right and he loves it so that could be one type of success story that we could see so like a big change but often I see many small changes that are just as much as a success to me um for example I've seen people um take a break just stop working for a uh catch a breath and go back uh I've seen people um realize that they want to do exactly the job that they're doing but with a different team or I've seen people um realize that they've grown enough in their career to start their own business but do exactly what they were doing but for their own uh profit right so I think all of these are our success stories that that I see uh on a daily basis and would you say I feel that when people come to see you or make that first step that first phone call it takes courage to do that it takes a lot of courage the process of guidance counseling is very uncomfortable uh I'd say that therapy is uncomfortable because you go you go to therapy and you look at things that make you suffer uh but guidance counseling is also very uncomfortable because you look at things that make you suffer and then you're asked to make changes and changing is not something that human being human beings really enjoy it's uh it's unsafe you don't know what the outcome is going to be it it requires effort it requires time sometimes money and it changes your routine it changes your lifestyle so uh yes it you need you need a lot of courage to be able to pick up that phone and and get that first appointment but it can pay off um I mean my husband wants me to switch from mac to pc and that's like it I'm trying to tap into my courage to do that because I've been using max for over 10 years and it's if that is hard I can you know imagine changing your career right um what is the best way to reach you and familiarize with the services you offer at salto conseil yeah I think the easiest way is really visiting our website there's a lot of information there about what we do and how we do it so it's uh salto conseil.com awesome uh do you are you offering any video sessions right now yes we are everything is done remotely I'm in the office right now but I'm alone and I'm always alone in the office same for the other counselors so yeah everything is done remotely right now and for a little while nice and do you have any upcoming interesting projects with salto so salto has had for a bit more than a year now a podcast running so the podcast is continuing we had a short edition on COVID-19 that you're a part of thank you again um so the the COVID-19 edition is coming to end with one last episode coming up shortly and we'll be coming back with our regular programming soon after that and we're launching a blog very soon about different issues regarding labor market personality mental health at work so yeah different themes like that nice that's awesome well thank you so much av this I mean I think we could talk forever I mean it's just the the information is so interesting and I have so many questions uh that you can answer so maybe we'll do this again one day with like other topics uh so thank you very much thank you for having me here's to you so you gave me the idea to make office mugs so these are our mugs and uh we look forward to seeing you on our channel again very soon thanks for having me I'll be back in either you want me to hear it awesome take care bye bye