Asian Journal- The Filipino-American Community Newspaper

WHEN Cecilia Meneses moved here in the United States less than two years ago, she knew about the adjustments she would face, but she didn’t quite realize how different life would be for her. Besides, she had established a fruitful career in the Philippines, working for a number of non-profit, non-government organizations like CARE International and the British Council.

Then, through her petition was approved and she had to leave behind her life, her career. While her professional background in the Philippines was impeccable, like many immigrants, she got the bittersweet taste of finding a job here in the US.

Then, through a colleague, she found Upwardly Global.

Upwardly Global is a nonprofit organization that brings highly qualified immigrants and highly progressive employers together. "The office was opened in 2003, our founder, Jane Leu had previously worked in refugee resettlement and she was shocked that people who had master’s degrees, and who had significant skills and experience were working in minimum wage jobs that were unskilled jobs in manufacturing plants," said Anne Kirwan, Managing Director of Upwardly Global. "So her intention in setting up the organization was to create a situation on where immigrants would be seamlessly integrated into the American workforce and would not face the kind of barriers that they historically faced."

Being a non-profit organization, Upwardly Global gets funding funding from community foundations, from corporations, from donors and some partnerships with corporations.

Kirwan shared that the people that they work with are from developing countries—Latin America, Asia, Africa, Middle East and Eastern Europe—and has at least a bachelor’s degree and about half have a master’s degree. In addition to being educationally qualified, all have permanent work authorization and have come to the US in the last five years and have a minimum of two years work experience from their home country. "But most of the jobseekers that we see from the Philippines would have considerably more experience," said Kirwan and added, "This year, so far we’ve had 427 applications and 102 of those applications have been from the Philippines."

At Upwardly Global, they assist jobseekers by looking at their background, degree and experience. First of all, they help them work on their resumes so that basically it’s in an American format that will be successful here. "Foreign resumes are usually 5 to 6 pages long, and contains information that is not appropriate here in the US," said Kirwan.

Applicants also undergo workshops to learn how to target their job search such are the type of company and position they are looking for, as well as how to have a marketing pitch, that includes professional background and their career objectives.

Breaking the barriers and the importance of networking

One of the barriers new immigrants face when looking for jobs in the US is not having the right network. Kirwan explained the importance of creating a network for the jobseeker and how to network, American-style.