Refugee settlers in South-East Queensland: Employment, aspirations and intergenerational communication about future occupational pathways: final report

This is the finalreport of the ARC linkage research project Refugees’ employment aspirations and inter-generational communication about future occupational pathways.The project was based in South-eastQueensland and was conducted overthree years (2013, 2014, and 2015). The lead chief investigator was Dr Aparna Hebbani from the University of Queensland.The project had three overall aims. Aim 1: To investigate the employment experiences of recently arrived refugees. Aims2 and 3: Toinvestigate refugees’ aspirations for themselves and their children’s educational and occupational futures.Specifically, this study focused on the experiences of refugeesettlersfrom Burma, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Ethiopia, which are among the top ten source countries for offshore humanitarian entrants (DIBP, 2013).<br/

The impact of religious difference and unemployment/underemployment on Somali former refugee settlement in Australia

Australia has resettled many Somalis as part of its annual refugee intake; upon coming to their new host country, Somali communities face multiple challenges with regards to successful settlement. The majority of Somalis are Muslim and are visibly different from the predominantly Anglo-Australian population. This paper presents findings from a small-group qualitative study in Australia that explored the challenges Somalis face in the employment context and the resulting impact of unemployment/underemployment on members of the Somali community. It reports narratives gathered from 16 Somali males and females (employed and unemployed) via focus groups in Brisbane, Australia. These narratives painted a picture of perceived discrimination and marginalization due to religious affiliation, which led to unemployment/underemployment within the community

Putting my best foot forward

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The intercultural hiring interview: Studying nonverbal behavior

This study employed the theoretical perspective of uncertainty reduction (Berger & Calabrese, 1974) to examine the effects of the similarity/dissimilarity of interviewers’ and interviewees’ nonverbal behaviors exhibited during an intercultural hiring interview on interviewers’ perceptions of and hiring decisions about interviewees. Mock hiring interviews were conducted between 15 male Indian graduate student interviewees and 2 male Caucasian U.S. professionals who participated as interviewers. The procedures attempted to replicate real-life interviews as closely as possible. Videotapes of the interactions were rated by trained coders with respect to the amount and similarity of the nonverbal behaviors displayed by research participants. Interviewers completed questionnaires (after each interview) rating their level of attributional confidence and the perceived hireability of the applicant. Regression analyses showed that across the interviewers, attributional confidence was a significant predictor of interviewees’ hireability and, at the individual interviewer level, some nonverbal behaviors (facial expressions, eye contact, and forward lean) predicted hireability to some degree but not attributional confidence. The results have implications for organizations attempting to increase the diversity of their workforce and for future communication research on intercultural hiring interviews