Peter de Vries

Background

About Peter de Vries

I am an employer liaison at ACCES Employment. I have 3+ years of experience connecting newcomers to Canada with new employment and volunteer opportunities in their preferred fields. Although I have an educational background in social service work, I decided to focus on employment services because I believe that helping people to sustain themselves through meaningful employment creates huge positive impacts that are not always possible to achieve in other areas of social service work. I understand the challenges of keeping abreast with trends in AI and their vast implications for job seekers, the relentless race towards new technology that is used by human resources departments to screen applicants, and the volatility of the Canadian job market that has directly resulted from unforeseeable changes in our political landscape. I see my role as someone who helps people to overcome hurdles to employment by helping them to master all the different strategies that can be used to navigate it effectively while also maximizing their potential to find great new opportunities. In my past position as an employer liaison for ACCES Employment’s Financial Services Connections en Français programs, I helped coach more than 200 francophone newcomers to Canada on how to find work in the Canadian finance sector. By the end of the program's life span, 77% of my clients were employed, which exceeded the contractual target of 60%, despite many of my clients facing a considerable language barrier in Ontario. In my non-working time, I enjoy tabletop games, contributing to environmentally focused initiatives with different local grassroots groups, and running a good 20km per week on average.