Survey says ASET members enjoy working in Alberta

Posted on October 9, 2024 by Taber Times

By Heather Cameron
Taber Times
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

In June 2024, Association of Science and Engineering Technology Professionals of Alberta (ASET)  conducted a survey of their members who are specifically internationally trained professionals mostly from the Philippines, India and Pakistan, with some from Romania, Poland, Sri Lanka, Germany, Ireland, Australia, Vietnam, China, Ukraine, South Africa, Ghana, and Russia. Asked if they like working in Alberta, an overwhelming majority of survey respondents (92.65 per cent) said yes. 

“The Association of Science and Engineering Technology Professionals of Alberta is the professional self-regulatory organization for engineering technologists and technicians in Alberta. ASET currently represents almost 14,000 members, including full-time technology students, recent graduates, retired members, and fully certified members in 21 disciplines and more than 120 occupations across a multitude of industries,” said Association of Science and Engineering Technology Professionals of Alberta CEO Barry Cavanaugh. 

According to survey findings, Cavanaugh stated, well over one-third (35.29 per cent) of survey respondents weren’t able to find work in their professional field when they arrived in Canada. Within that subset group, Cavanaugh explained, more than half (53.66 per cent) said it was because employers required Canadian work experience. As a result, Cavanaugh stated, more than three-quarters of that subset group (76.74 per cent) had to take work outside their professional field in order to meet living expenses.

“I think the problem often is that people have come to find work in their professional field assuming that they can, and they don’t realize what hurdles they might have to encounter,” said Cavanaugh. “One of the problems we have is a lot of foreign trained engineers come to Canada recognizing or thinking that there’s opportunity here, and they’ve been told that their engineering education will be recognized. They get here, they apply to the professional engineering bodies, and they find out that they have to go back to school for a couple of years or something like that. Most of them wind up not able to go further with that for one reason or another, so unless they know about ASET as an option they’re kind of in big trouble. One of the reasons we like to talk to the media is to make it clear to people like that there is an option that if you’ve come with an engineering background, we can assess that and how it fits in and how you might be described as an engineering technologist, what your discipline would be, and we can do that relatively quickly if you can put together what you need to for us. If you can demonstrate that you’ve got a competency and you’ve done this work, that that’s all we need to see.” 

Cavanaugh says that a lot of the resources people need to work with ASET can be found at: https://www.aset.ab.ca/Home/About-ASET/Who-We-Are/Working-With-Our-Members, and can be addressed before people actually arrive in the country.

“I think we’re doing a pretty good job of making it accessible to people from other countries,” said Cavanaugh. “That’s really important because it’s clear to me, and I hope it’s going to be clear to government that they’re going to need thousands more engineering technologists in this province over the future, over the next two or three decades. The way, this province is growing and the requirements it has, we need these folks, and you may not realize that they’re there, but they are all around here and they’re making everything work.”

When survey respondents were asked why they asked working in Alberta, Cavanaugh says, 38.71 per cent said there was an abundance of job opportunities in their field, 29.03 per cent said that there was a strong economy, 11.29 per cent said it was because of proximity certain industries such as oil and gas, 6.45 per cent said because there was no Canadian work experience required to attain ASET designation, and 4.84 per cent said that there was good treatment by employers.

ASET, Cavanaugh says, is a significant and game-changing resource designed to support engineering technology professionals across the province, and because of ASET’s efforts, Alberta was the first Canadian province to eliminate the Canadian work experience requirement for engineering technologists and launched its competency-based assessment program that offers internationally trained and other engineering technology professionals a faster route to earning ASET designations and establishing careers in 2016.

“The first of its kind in Canada and pioneered by ASET, the competency-based assessment program enables people to gain purchase in their career fields and earn their ASET designations without having to return to school,” said Cavanaugh. “An ASET designation shows a member has met strict national criteria for certification in their field. Under the Engineering and Geosciences Professions Act, ASET members are also accountable for public safety under the law.”

Once internationally trained professionals become ASET members and work towards earning their designations, Cavanaugh says, they have access to other ASET resources, such as the online ASET Career Centre (for job postings), ASET mentoring program, and opportunities for continuing professional development.

“We’ve been anxious for some time to make sure that there’s a level playing field when you apply to this organization, that if you’re qualified you should be able to get membership and to be able to find work in your field,” said Cavanaugh. “It’s our job to determine whether you’re qualified, so we want that level playing field so that when somebody comes from Pakistan or Poland or, or Ontario or Alberta, they’re all being assessed exactly the same way. It’s to determine that they meet the requirements that we’ve established that we need in this province, and the re requirements are quite high. We established these, standards that we applied over the course of some years of discussion and planning with psychometricians and subject matter experts, and we finally came up with these, and then when we had them all, we decided we should make sure that we had a level playing field. We went back through them and cleaned them up for language, so there wasn’t any colloquial or subjective language. We wanted an absolutely objective assessment. We didn’t want language interfering. If in fact you, you still need assistance with the process, for example, if you need to write a certification exam and you’re not confident that your English is good enough, we can provide assistance with that so that you get a version of our certification exam that takes that into consideration. Obviously working in English is a big deal in this province, but I think, you know, sometimes you create difficulties in these examinations, and we need to know that you know what you’re doing and you know the context. We don’t need to know that your English is flawless. Those competency standards have worked exceedingly well with us and to the point where now just in the past year, in fact, all of our colleague organizations across the country have accepted those as their national standards, so those competency standards are going to be used everywhere in Canada. We’ve also established a certification exam that tests your academics. If in Canada, you come from an accredited program that’s accredited by Technology Accreditation Canada, of which we’re a member, that means we trust your education. We know it’s met all these markers that we need to see, and that’s the case across the country that if you have an accredited diploma, say from the agency, most of their programs are fully accredited. If you come from another jurisdiction, you’ll probably need to satisfy us about your credentials, and if that’s a problem you’ll need to be able to write the certification exam to test those academics. The exam that we’ve developed is being used nationally now as well, so we’re kind of ahead of the curve in a lot of respects, but we’re concerned to make certain that the people we put out there are the most qualified they can be, and that they stay that way.”

ASET, Cavanaugh says, has represented engineering technology professionals across Alberta for more than 60 years.

In 1963, Cavanaugh says, ASET was incorporated and registered under the Societies Act of the Province of Alberta under the name of the Alberta Society of Engineering Technicians, and the society’s main objective was to support the needs of the scientific and engineering community and recognize the contributions of technicians in the province. A few years later in 1966, Cavanaugh says, the society updated its name to the Alberta Society of Engineering Technologists, and it was also in this year that ASET had been successful in obtaining exclusive use in Alberta of the letters patent C.E.T. for Certified Engineering Technicians and Technologists (now standing for Certified Engineering Technologist only). As ASET (the association’s acronym from the very beginning) grew its membership and became the self-regulating professional association it is today, Cavanaugh says, the organization evolved into the Association of Science and Engineering Technology Professionals of Alberta in 2008 under the amended Engineering and Geoscience Professions Act.

Cavanaugh says that ASET members who live in Southern Alberta can earn their ASET designations, which often translate into better job opportunities and even promotions. They also have access to a range of benefits associated with ASET membership, including mentoring and volunteering opportunities, ASET Career Centre (job postings, continuing professional development opportunities, ASET salary survey), group insurance benefits (home and auto, office and professional liability, health), scholarships, networking events and webinars, and corporate retail discounts.

“In terms of Southern Alberta benefiting from ASET, let’s start first with the fact that ASET is regularly involved in career fairs at Lethbridge Polytechnic that serve to highlight its post-secondary programs. ASET participates to help promote the engineering technology profession overall and the programs there,” said Cavanaugh.

Engineering technology students at Lethbridge Polytechnic annually get to make their submissions in

order to become nominated as finalists for the ASET Capstone Project of the Year Award, Cavanaugh says, and finalists from Lethbridge Polytechnic have the opportunity to promote their projects in media campaigns produced by ASET. Cavanaugh says that Capstone Project of the Year Award finalists from Lethbridge Polytechnic have also been featured on Global Lethbridge, CTV News Lethbridge, and Bridge City News, and in Lethbridge Herald, LethbridgeNewsNOW and MyLethbridgeNOW.

Southern Alberta residents and Lethbridge Polytechnic instructors have received ASET Awards, Cavanaugh says, including the 2023 ASET CEO Award and 2024 ASET Outstanding Educator Award, and Lethbridge Polytechnic instructors have also been featured in multiple ASET media campaigns. In addition to that, Cavanaugh says, three ASET Council Presidents attended Lethbridge Polytechnic and two were Lethbridge residents, and one of the Presidents was the youngest ever female ASET Council President.

Next month, Cavanaugh says, ASET is participating in the fifth annual STEM Fusion conference at the University of Lethbridge, which is designed to connect STEM professionals with commercialization, innovation, and entrepreneurship. 

“It’s an opportunity for STEM professionals to meet academic and industry leaders, network, and form new connections and collaborations,” says Cavanaugh.