As more businesses extend their corporate social responsibility agendas, opportunities for employees to volunteer are becoming more frequent and diversified.

There is a myriad of ways organisations can now support newly arrived migrants and refugees to settle into the community and to learn about work in Australia.

But it is not only the recipients benefiting from their time with corporate volunteers. The volunteers themselves often take away something from the experience.

Connecting volunteers with people from different cultural backgrounds is also helping to change perspectives and shift the narrative about migration.

These experiences naturally feed back into organisations and may further strengthen connections to customers, stakeholders or communities.

Jacobs, an international technical professional services firm, participate in corporate volunteering activities several times a year out of their Melbourne office.

They have hosted a ‘Work Well Day’ where newly arrived migrants and refugees aged 16 to 25 years of age participated in discussions about workplace culture in Australia and mock-interviews with the volunteers.

Corporate volunteers from Jacobs have also participated in mock-interviews with recently arrived professional migrants, providing them with feedback to help prepare them for Australian-style job interviews in their professions.

The volunteers are often matched with migrants formally employed in engineering or technical related fields.

There is also the opportunity for Jacobs volunteers to mentor these professional migrants one-on-one outside of the workplace, to help them navigate the Australian job market, improve their LinkedIn profile, and so forth.

Owen Boushel, a social scientist at Jacobs, has volunteered in both the mock-interviews and as a professional mentor for skilled migrants.

“It’s clear that these migrants come from a professional background, that they have the technical skills,” he said.

“So it’s also a good opportunity to cut through the platitudes.”

Owen says that he is able to give frank feedback to the students such as what to repeat in a real interview and what to leave out.

“They were very receptive to the feedback,” he said.

Participating in such activities is a flexible way for Jacobs to help migrants and refugees.

“I think that this is also a chance for Jacobs to be involved in a project that has a clear good.”

“These professionals might look to work for a company like Jacobs one day, and will remember meeting Jacobs staff, and this experience,” Owen said.

Corporate volunteers at J.P. Morgan, a global financial services firm, also provide mock interviews to skilled professional migrants in their Melbourne office.

Sang Phung, a Business Analyst at J.P. Morgan, says volunteering in this way is a great learning experience for both the recipients and the volunteers.

“These mock interviews are focused on developing talent and helping people to become ready for the Australian workplace, which is something J.P. Morgan has an emphasis on,” Sang said.

“I’ve learnt that the interviewer has to be just as prepared as the interviewee.

“This experience has also been a lot of fun, I personally really enjoyed meeting the students, and learning more about them,” he said.

Carissa Gilham
AMES Australia Staff Writer