Canada selects skilled immigrants for their talent. Then it asks them to start over.

I'm Dapo Bankole. I've lived that gap, spent 26 years building the systems organisations run on, and now study the problem at Royal Roads University. My work points at one goal: a zero-waste talent economy.

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Dapo Bankole smiling, wearing a sage-green blazer over a black shirt, hands clasped, against a light studio background.

TEDxRRU speaker
Project Management Professional (PMP)
Fellow, Institute of Management Consultants – Nigeria (FIMC)
Board member, Windmill Microlending and Momentum
Doctoral researcher, Royal Roads University

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Deferred selection

Canada admits people for what they can do. Then hiring rooms, licensing bodies and now immigration rules ask them to prove it again, in Canada, before it counts.

Selection hasn't failed. It has been postponed, and the cost of the wait falls on the newcomer, their family and every employer short of the skills they brought.

Read about the research

One problem, seen from three sides

Lived it

Arrived in 2012 with twelve years of experience

Call centre shifts, grocery nights and airport cargo came before the career Canada had selected me for. I know the gap from the inside.

My story
Built for it

26 years delivering systems that have to work

Large telecom programmes, an enterprise consultancy since 2015, and Mentorfy, software for running mentoring programmes well.

My work
Studying it

Doctoral research at Royal Roads University

Why pre-employment mentoring so often misses: mismatches between mentors and protégés, and what they cost skilled newcomers. Work in progress.

The research