18 December 2019

PRESS RELEASE – More and more Estrie businesses are looking to international recruitment as a way of meeting their needs for qualified workers: six Estrie and Sherbrooke businesses are back from overseas missions in France and Tunisia, which were organized in collaboration with Sherbrooke Innopole. All those companies plan to hire one or more of the qualified candidates they met overseas.

Dostie Spécialités, Exo-s, FilSpec and Merkur were among the companies that participated in the 21st edition of the Journées Québec which took place on November 30 and December 1 in Paris. Their business representatives were accompanied by professionals from Sherbrooke Innopole, the Table des MRC de l’Estrie and Préférence Estrie, a welcoming and foreign worker integration service.

TLD Canada as well as Sherbrooke Innopole’s talent recruiter, Myriam Gagnon-Couture, participated in an international recruitment mission led by Québec International in Tunis, on December 4 and 5. Mrs. Gagnon-Couture was also representing BRP, who wanted to explore the possibility of recruiting from the pool of specialized workers who are interested in immigrating to Québec.

This service is offered to businesses in the five key sectors who are unable to travel overseas. This representation package offered by Sherbrooke Innopole includes help for drawing up the job offers and managing interviews with potential employees. The final selection is made by the company after the event is over.

“TLD Canada is proud to have participated in its first international recruitment mission. We met some very good candidates whose technical skills were far beyond what we expected. We went having several positions to fill and we came back confident that we would meet our objectives. It was a first-time experience for us, but certainly not our last!” said Judith Poulin, Human Resources Advisor for TLD Canada.

“In the current context of full employment in Québec, employers must be creative and make themselves attractive to find the workers they need to sustain their growth. Missions like the one to Tunis and the Journées Québec in Paris are a good entry point for businesses who want to make their first foray into recruiting internationally. They have the opportunity to recruit from among preselected French speaking candidates based on their hiring needs, and more importantly, ones who are interested in making their life in Québec”, highlighted Myriam Gagnon-Couture, Sherbrooke Innopole’s Advisor, Talent Attraction.

Journées Québec in Paris

Organized by the ministère du Travail, de l’Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale and the ministère de l’Immigration, de la Francisation et de l’Intégration, the Journées Québec allow employers from the province to meet and recruit qualified workers from Europe in sectors that are experiencing manpower shortages in Québec.

In total, four participating local area businesses sought to fill more than twenty positions, notably in the engineering, electromechanical, mechanical and tooling fields.

It was the 12th time Sherbrooke Innopole participated in the Journées Québec, and the second time as part of a regional collaborative effort. In fact, as was the case during the Journées Québec held in May of 2019, representatives from the Table des MRC de l’Estrie and Préférence Estrie joined this latest mission so they could welcome qualified workers who wanted to take on new challenges in Québec.

Caroline Manseau, Regional Advisor for Workforce Attraction and Retention at the Table des MRC de l’Estrie, affirmed that “after participating for the second time, we are pleased to state that once again the Estrie is a region that has a lot to offer that will satisfy the desires and aspirations of qualified workers wanting to make a new life for themselves by calling Québec their home. We have to keep building on this strength. Our attendance allows us to not only support participating Estrie businesses by informing the potential candidates as to what they can expect in terms of living environment, but also by promoting the Estrie to the other qualified workers attending these recruitment sessions, for the purposes of potentially satisfying the needs of other businesses in our regional county municipality”.

While there, Sherbrooke Innopole, the Table des MRC de l’Estrie and Préférence Estrie promoted the region as a choice destination where to live and work, as well as explaining the welcoming and integration services that new highly qualified workers have available to them. More than 250 European candidates received information at our kiosk.

The 21st edition of the Journées Québec was a big hit with the European candidates, with 13 320 people signing up. The 122 participating Québec employers conducted more than 3500 interviews – in addition to numerous spontaneous meetings – with the goal of filling more than 2200 positions in several sectors of Québec’s economy.

Future initiatives for supporting the recruitment of manpower

Two other international recruitment missions are planned for June 2020, one in Morocco and one in Paris. Businesses interested in participating can attend an information session (in French) which will be held on February 6, 2020.

In parallel with these overseas initiatives, Sherbrooke Innopole is ramping up its actions to support businesses locally, both in the industrial and tertiary motor sectors, in their effort to attract, recruit and retain workers, including the following:

• Atelier Sourcing 101 en recrutement (recruitment sourcing 101 workshop) (in French), January 16;
• Programme de formation Attraction et rétention de main-d’œuvre (attracting and retaining workers training programme) (in French), starting on January 22, in collaboration with the Commission scolaire des Hauts-Cantons;
• Co-development group sessions for human resources managers in the key sectors of information technology, and manufacturing and advanced manufacturing;
• Participation in the Journée Entreprise (career day) at the École de technologie supérieure (ÉTS), January 29, with two Sherbrooke businesses.

For information about upcoming activities organized by Sherbrooke Innopole regarding attracting and retaining the workforce, subscribe to our newsletter Flash INNOV at https://sherbrooke-innopole.com/en/subscription-flash-innov/ and join our Facebook group: Sherbrooke Innopole – Main-d’œuvre.

About Sherbrooke Innopole

Sherbrooke Innopole is Sherbrooke’s economic development arm whose mission is to accelerate the development of businesses in five key sectors – Advanced Manufacturing, Cleantech, Information Technologies, Life Sciences and Micro-nanotechnologies – and to work to make Sherbrooke an attractive and innovative business environment. sherbrooke-innopole.com 

Source: Sherbrooke Innopole

Photo: The Estrie delegation to the Journées Québec in Paris: Michel Dufort (Exo-s), Sylvain Lalumière (Dostie Spécialités), Caroline Manseau (Table des MRC de l’Estrie), Diane Turgeon (Préférence Estrie), Julie Duhamel (FilSpec), Mélinda Roy (FilSpec), Myriam Gagnon-Couture (Sherbrooke Innopole), Véronic Deslauriers (Exo-s), Stéphanie Castang (Merkur) and Olivier Bandel (Merkur).