Guiding youths toward their dream job
United Way’s Networks helps pair job-seeking youth with mentors in their desired field
Nivethan (Navy) Amirthalingam was 3 years old in 1996, when he fled war-torn Sri Lanka with his mother. They settled in Toronto, Amirthalingam’s father joining them four years later, in 2000.
Their story was marked by the colossal challenges typical for so many refugees — leaving behind family, friends, jobs and their homeland in search of safety, having to start over in a foreign land. It was an experience that deeply influenced Amirthalingam.
“My parents were very hard-working. They instilled those values into me. We had an opportunity here in Canada to achieve our dreams, to work hard because nothing would be given to us and to not waste any opportunities,” he says. “It motivated me to work hard and make a difference within my community in Toronto.”
Work hard he did. After graduating from Jarvis Collegiate — where he was involved with baseball, chess, and the Me 2 We club, a community service group aligned with the charity Free The Children — Amirthalingam enrolled at York University, studying financial and business economics.
He did well, remaining involved with his community through the St. James Town Youth Council, serving as a frosh leader at York, and graduating with honours in 2015. But when he began looking for a job, he was unsuccessful.
“School taught me all the theory and made me think bigger, but it didn’t prepare me for the reality of looking for work,” Amirthalingam, now 24, says. “It was really, really competitive. It was tough. I made a decision to take a different route. I talked to people in my community about how to look for work . . . that’s how I started with Networks with the United Way.”
Networks is a United Way networking and mentoring program for young people in the Greater Toronto Area. It makes tailored connections between employers — who offer their employees the opportunity to become mentors — and job-seeking
“There’s a whole community of people out there who don’t know anyone on Bay Street.” CHRIS O’BRIEN DIRECTOR, WORKFORCE STRATEGY AT RBC
youth looking for guidance and advice. Through events and networking sessions, the United Way brings the two groups together. Chris O’Brien, director of workforce strategy at RBC, is one such Networks mentor. He got involved with the program last year, inspired by his own jobhunting experience as a new graduate.
“When I came out of university in the early ’90s, it was really hard to make a connection anywhere. It was difficult to get my career started — I went from having a degree to ‘Now what?’ ” O’Brien recalls. “When I went to the Networks orientation kickoff meeting that RBC held . . . it really resonated with me. There’s a whole community of people out there who don’t know anyone on Bay Street.”
It was at an RBC-hosted Networks event earlier this year where Amirthalingam and O’Brien met, when they found themselves seated at the same table. “Here was a young man who had his act together. That struck me almost right away,” O’Brien says.
O’Brien offered his business card up for any of the Networks mentee’s to take, if they were interested in future coffee meetings.
Amirthalingam jumped on the opportunity and, about a month or so later, the two began what became a regular series of meetups over the summer.
“Chris is a really intelligent guy and being able to sit with him for an hour each time was so valuable, I learned about so many things. About work, and about life,” Amirthalingam says. “He gave me so many insights about my resumé, my cover letter, interview skills.”
It was a rewarding experience for O’Brien too. He was increasingly impressed by his mentee and thought there might be an opportunity for him within RBC.
“(He was) a young man who didn’t sit on the sidelines. He got involved in the community, he was giving back, he did interesting things at school. He was trying to make things happen,” O’Brien says. “I started thinking, ‘Well here’s somebody that we could find a use for . . . Here was someone who had all the capability.’ ”
As the summer was drawing to a close, O’Brien helped Amirthalingam — who is currently enrolled in Centennial College’s School of Business — land a co-op position with RBC’s technology and operations department, a dream job for Amirthalingam. “I always wanted to work for a big bank,” he says.
“Growing up, when I went to a bank, it looked really amazing. I kind of fell in love with the way it was run and I wanted to know how it all worked.”
Amirthalingam remains involved with the United Way as a speaker, sharing his experience with Networks, which he credits as an experience that made all the difference to him as a new graduate, unsure of where to look for opportunities.
“I didn’t have a platform to go out and meet people from different industries,” he says. “United Way and the Networks program give youth, like myself, the opportunity to go out there and find a passion, find what they want to do, and make it easier to navigate the job market.”