For those who still don’t know me, I am Carolina Salinas, the founder and host of PRofessionals & Coffee (PR & Coffee) and a former international student from Mexico who studied Public Relations – Corporate Communications at Seneca Polytechnic from 2019 to 2020.
My time at Seneca College was amazing, even though I had to conclude my postgraduate program remotely because the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. And one of the reasons I feel this way is that it showed me that you really can make your dreams come true by working hard. Studying abroad had been a dream of mine for over 10 years, ever since I obtained my bachelor’s degree in communications in my home country of Mexico. And now here I am, living and working in Canada, doing what I love to do. But as grateful as I am that I was able to make my dreams come true – and then some – there are still aspects of my journey that make me stop and think about how things could have been different.
Dialogues Public Relations Magazine, Seneca. 2019, Being an International Student.
By the time I graduated from my program at Seneca, the pandemic was in full swing. And I realized pretty quickly as a result that in spite of my fifteen years of experience working for non-profit organizations and governments in both Canada and Mexico, this unprecedented global health crisis was going to present challenges that I had never anticipated. At the outset, I had no illusions about the problems I would have to overcome job-hunting and networking as I made my way along the path to becoming first a permanent resident and then finally a Canadian Citizen. But with the cancellation of most in-person networking events – and the broader lack of professional job opportunities brought about by widespread economic instability – the way forward for me suddenly looked far from certain.
During plenty of job interviews, I had to emphasize that I had Canadian education as well as public relations, communications and marketing experience from my home country that directly related to the positions I was applying for. And more than once I experienced a degree of discrimination for speaking with an accent or for pronouncing certain words differently. Over time, I began to feel self-conscious because I didn’t sound like a native speaker. Fortunately, that changed when a PR and communications professional told me something during a virtual coffee chat that really changed my perspective. “Never hide your accent because that is part of your identity,” they said. “You bring a mosaic of work and life experience. Also, when I hear someone speak with an accent that makes me think that this person speaks more than one language, which deserves my respect because I only speak English.” Hearing this really helped me believe in myself, and I began to place more value on what I had already achieved.
Another difficulty that I ran into, of course, was a lack of Canadian contacts or networking support. Knowing only a handful of people in Canada – and most of those being fellow immigrants like myself – made for a difficult professional transition from Mexico to Canada. I had a Canadian degree, as I mentioned before, but the fact that I had virtually no Canadian professional connections made it very hard to know where to focus my energies.
I’m sure that those of you who already understand the value of networking know what I mean when I say that I felt a little lost at this point. I was on the lookout for opportunities, but where was I supposed to find them? Without some kind of way in – some kind of introduction – how was I supposed to gain access to the PR, communications, and marketing grapevine in Canada?
Thankfully, around this time I started volunteering in the non-profit sector. I met people, I built a portfolio, and before too long I had people in my corner and something to show to potential employers during job interviews. This combination, I believe, is the key to professional success in Canada. I can tell you from my experience that it is a waste of time to tailor resumes and cover letters and then send them daily through LinkedIn or email. Your approach needs to be targeted and you need to build up and leverage relationships.
So, in the end I was able to navigate this unusual time and achieve the kind of success I dreamed of when I first left Mexico. I found a job that I love at Haven Toronto as a Coordinator of Volunteer, Administration, Marketing and Donor Services, all thanks to the Canadian experience that I had gained by volunteering, building a strong portfolio, and networking. And I have since become a permanent resident. Truly, I feel that this next stage in my life’s journey is well on its way. But after having felt firsthand the lack of support experienced by many recent graduates and newcomers to Canada in the face of this uncertain economic moment, I found myself thinking about those who have not been as fortunate as I have in moving on into the next phase of their lives. And I started to ask myself if there was some way that I could help.
This is how PRofessionals & Coffee (PR & Coffee) was born, first as an idea in October 2021 during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and then as a concrete initiative in January 2022. As a volunteer collective, PRofessionals & Coffee seeks to use virtual coffee chats, videos and/or podcasts to connect experienced PR, communication, and marketing professionals with new practitioners in the field who want to establish their networks, develop skills, and build the kind of portfolio that will help them land the public relations, marketing, or communications job that propels them into the next stage of their lives and careers in Canada.
The goal of PRofessionals & Coffee is to connect, at no cost, experienced practitioners of public relations, marketing, and communications with students, recent graduates, and newcomers to Canada through virtual coffee chats. In doing so, we aim to help our volunteers establish professional connections, gain experience, develop skills, build a portfolio, and boost their professional profiles in public relations, communications and marketing so that they can land a job and – in the case of newcomers – facilitate their immigration journey in Canada. The idea is to bring together knowledge and ambition, experience and aspiration in the virtual space of a coffee chat, all for the purpose of building up and enriching the next generation of PR, marketing, and communications professionals.
My decision to found a volunteer collective based entirely within the public relations, marketing, and communications sectors was not based on personal experience alone, of course. My research has shown that there is a definite need in Canada for the kind of intermediate job training programs that PRofessionals & Coffee now provides to its clients (students, recent graduates and newcomers from the field of communication, marketing and public relations).
During my time in the PR Post-Graduate Certificate program at Seneca College, I noticed that there was a definite demand for these kinds of services. Most of my classmates were international students like me, many of them spoke English as a second language, and hardly any of us had any professional connections that we could tap into to begin planning for our careers. According to Jeff Roach, the Public Relations and Corporate Communications Program Coordinator, this is a far from uncommon occurrence. Demand for high quality education in the field of public relations is exceptionally high among incoming international students in Canada. In fact, as of this writing – almost three years after my own class graduated – that same PR program offered at Seneca has a cohort composed of something like 90 % international students.
Clearly, there is a need at this exact moment in time for an intermediate step between post-secondary institutions and full-time employers that can provide the kind of job specific training and practical experience that today’s job seekers require more than ever if they are going to succeed. The widespread economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic has meant less money is available for on-the-job training, less money can be spent on up-to-the-minute PR education, and less money is making its way into the pockets of aspiring PR professionals who might want to seek out job training on their own.
Bearing all of this in mind, I believe that by leveraging the skills and knowledge of established professionals and connecting them to students, recent graduates, and newcomers to Canada just entering the Canadian workforce, PRofessionals & Coffee can fill this need within the public relations, marketing and communications sectors. And along the way, I believe that we can also help more Public Relations students who came to this country to study to become Permanent Residents just like I did.
Now, having said all that – and without downplaying the very real challenges I have faced – my journey in Canada has been beautiful as well. It’s been full of challenges, of course, but also full of learning, and growing and, most importantly, of embracing Canada’s culture of friendliness and community. Indeed, it is this sense of cooperation and compassion that partly led to me founding, hosting, and leading a volunteer collective whose purpose is to support newcomers and immigrants who are dealing with the struggles that come with job hunting and networking in Canada.
Now that I have settled into my life as a Permanent Resident here in Canada, I want to advocate for and support students, recent graduates and newcomers in the field of public relations, marketing and communications across Canada so that they can hopefully experience the same joy that I feel whenever I think about how far I’ve come since first arriving here in 2018. No one more than a former international student can understand and empathize with the stress that a newcomer feels when they think about how uncertain the future sometimes looks in a strange new country far from everything they’ve ever known. And in the spirit of community – the “Canadian spirit”, if you like – I want to reach out my hand and do what I can to help. As the founder and host of Professionals & Coffee, I’m looking forward to supporting you with your professional journey, your pathway to permanent residency, and finally to your becoming a Canadian Citizen.
If you are a PR, communications, and marketing student, recent graduate, and/or a newcomer to Canada who wants to gain practical experience in the PR sector or is interested in developing connections with PR, marketing, and communications professionals – all at no cost to yourself – please email us at [email protected].
PRofessionals & Coffee aims to facilitate the growth of meaningful careers, aid in the transition of recent migrants to Canada to proud Canadian Citizens and provide a pathway for all beginners in the public relations, marketing, and communications sectors to enrich their own communities and help strengthen Canada as a centre of PR excellence.
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