As Australia debates whether our intake of refugees is the “right” number, ACOSS has noted that “20,000 refugees per year is . . . just three to five per cent of arrivals.”

But the heated debate over numbers obscures the enormous contribution refugees make to our economy – including as employees, often in less popular jobs that can be impossible to fill otherwise.

Refugees often arrive in Australia with valuable skills but without recognised qualifications and sometimes with challenges resulting from their experiences of displacement.

For organisations looking to fill vacancies or skills gaps – and potentially make an additional impact by helping some of the most vulnerable people in our community – employing refugees might be an option you haven’t fully considered.

Flor Sedighi is Director of Refugee Business at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre (ASRC), and believes NFP organisations can significantly benefit from giving people from refugee backgrounds a chance to show what they’re capable of.

That can mean taking a closer look at some of the systemic barriers in recruitment and employment that make it harder for refugee candidates to get a foot in the door.

We spoke to Sedighi about how hiring refugees can benefit organisations and what NFP leaders can do to better attract, recruit and support them.

How hiring refugees can strengthen your organisation

According to Sedighi, refugees are more likely to have different backgrounds and career paths which can bring a fresh perspective to familiar problems – and new ways of thinking about how to solve them.

“When everyone has trained in one country, you can end up with similar ways of thinking,” she says. “People from refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds bring different ways of thinking critically and ways to tackle and solve problems that we might not be familiar with. Sometimes they’re very innovative because of their experiences.

“We benefit from that in our workplace. When we come across an issue, we open it up to everyone and ask, ‘What can we do differently?’ Sometimes the best idea comes out of that brainstorming.”

Sedighi points out that a candidate’s career history doesn’t always tell the full story of what they can bring to an organisation. Looking beyond familiar job titles, qualifications or career pathways can reveal skills and perspectives that might otherwise be missed.

She also says employees from refugee backgrounds can bring “a very positive, can-do attitude” – as well as teamwork, resilience and loyalty.

For hiring managers, there may be barriers that currently stand in the way of employing refugees – which can be anything from gaps in career history and assumptions about qualifications or English proficiency to uncertainty around visa conditions and work rights.

The good news is that many of these barriers can be overcome. Here, Sedighi shares seven ways NFPs can create better employment opportunities for people from refugee backgrounds.

1. Look beyond the CV

One of the biggest barriers refugees face can simply be getting a foot in the door. But giving someone a chance to interview for a job can reveal skills an organisation might otherwise have missed. For example, Sedighi recalls recruiting a delivery driver for ASRC, and later discovering he was a mechanical engineer when he began fixing equipment on site.

For hiring managers, she says, it’s important to consider a candidate’s potential as well as previous experience. That might mean looking beyond the job titles on their CV and considering the transferable skills and experience they could bring to the role. Someone may not have held an equivalent role in Australia before, but that doesn’t mean they lack the skills to succeed in it.

“One thing I’ve noticed is that when you give someone their first job in Australia, you can change their life, their family and the workplace culture,” she says.

“They want to be successful and will often go above and beyond [what’s in their PD] to do their job well. They also bring different cultures and experiences into the workplace. As a direct manager, you can create that first opportunity and then work together on a pathway for where they want to go.”

2. Consider lived experience

People from refugee backgrounds can bring experience that doesn’t always fit neatly into conventional selection criteria. Hiring practices that recognise the value of both professional and lived experience, and focus on what skills are actually needed for the role, can be more effective than just focusing on professional experience.

When considering a candidate from a refugee background, “there is often a pre-assumption that the person might not be a cultural fit in the team,” Sedighi says. “That can be quite wrong because you’re bringing in someone from another country and they are bringing their knowledge, life experience, culture and language, making our culture even stronger. It’s not a barrier [to success] to have cultural diversity.”

“Language can be a barrier, but employers need to understand: what English level is actually required for the job [you are hiring for]? Are we making it more important than it needs to be? What are the other important criteria?”

For organisations working with refugee communities, lived experience can also provide knowledge that is difficult to acquire through professional training alone.

Referencing her own experience, Sedighi says: “I know what the person I am working with has been through. I have an understanding of the gaps that exist, the different ways of thinking that my team have, and the barriers that people might have.”

Hiring people with this knowledge can help organisations challenge assumptions about how programs and services should be designed and delivered. Instead of bringing community perspectives into a project only at the consultation stage, lived expertise can be embedded within an organisation and inform decisions as they are being made.

“Having the lived expertise can support our understanding of how we co-design with the group we are working with,” Sedighi says.

3. Don’t let visa complexity become a reason not to hire

Visa and work-rights conditions can appear daunting, particularly for employers unfamiliar with the different visa categories. “There’s lots of complexity in terms of the different types of visa and eligibility,” Sedighi says.

But she cautions against letting the administrative requirements become a bigger concern than they need to be. In her experience, losing an employee because of their visa status is relatively uncommon.

“People might be scared because there is a bit of admin to be done, or worried they may lose a person after they train them. But after all these years of experience, I cannot say the reason we lost someone was because of the visa. There are so many other reasons you can lose an employee – their visa is not the top one.”

The practical approach is to understand what work rights apply to a particular candidate and put simple systems in place to manage any requirements. Some candidates may have unlimited work rights, while others have conditions that need to be checked. Calendar reminders and clear communication can help keep track of these requirements.

Organisations also don’t need to become visa experts. Third-party providers can conduct work-right checks, while organisations working in the refugee sector – like ASRC – may be able to offer guidance and support.

“You can get a third party to do a visa check. Because you’re working in the sector, you can get support from external organisations. They might even be able to do it free of charge. But most important is to educate your team.”

Making sure hiring managers understand the basics can help ensure uncertainty around visa conditions doesn’t become an unnecessary barrier to employment.

4. See the individual, not the category

Sedighi says one of the common mistakes employers can make is treating refugee candidates as a single category. “Every person, journey and career is different, and where they want to go is different,” she says. “We need to avoid assumptions and not put a label on refugees as one category.”

That approach shouldn’t stop once someone has been hired. Sedighi says being trusted to test ideas, make decisions and learn through experience was central to her own career progression.

“Through the journey, it was creating the opportunity and having trust in me, and letting me try through trial and error where possible, that helped me progress.”

“Refugees are not one group – don’t treat them as one category,” Sedighi says. “As with any other person, you need to spend time with each employee to see what they want and where the gaps are. Providing good onboarding can set people up for success and ensure they are on the right journey or path.”

5. Don’t lower expectations: create the conditions for success

Sedighi says hiring people from refugee backgrounds is not about lowering expectations – it’s about making adjustments to ensure they have the best chance of succeeding. Like any other employee, this means they need to understand what is expected of them from the start, and receive regular, constructive feedback.

“A job is not charity,” she says. “It’s about supporting a person to gain work experience and improve their experience, and supporting your organisation as well. Feedback is so important: being honest, showing empathy, but also providing support and guidance.”

Putting that support into practice could involve creating a structured role pathway from the outset. Clear milestones for the first three, six and twelve months, combined with regular check-ins and quarterly and yearly goals, can help provide a strong sense of direction. A buddy or mentor can bring additional support and give employees a trusted person to turn to as they settle into the role.

Sedighi also emphasises the importance of creating a workplace where people feel comfortable acknowledging what they don’t know. After all, starting a job in a new country can mean navigating unfamiliar workplace norms and expectations, and employees may be reluctant to ask questions if they worry it will be seen as a lack of capability.

“Build an environment of trust where people can ask questions and don’t think they need to be perfect,” she says.

Managers can help by building opportunities for questions into everyday work – for example, setting aside time for questions during onboarding and meetings, and responding openly and positively when someone asks for clarification.

The aim is to create an environment where people have both the freedom to contribute and the support to develop.

6. Offer training and learn from others

Hiring and supporting people from refugee backgrounds can involve challenges that managers may not have encountered before. Sedighi says providing training for hiring managers can help them better understand the barriers refugee candidates face, as well as challenge assumptions and identify where their recruitment processes may need to change.

She also sees opportunities for NFPs to learn from each other. Rather than developing approaches in isolation, she says, organisations can share their experiences and learn from what has worked elsewhere. Cross-organisational learning can help NFPs build connections with refugee communities and potential employees they might otherwise struggle to reach.

7. Create pathways for progression

Creating employment opportunities for people from refugee backgrounds shouldn’t mean limiting them to entry-level positions. Organisations also need to consider whether refugee employees are being given genuine opportunities to progress into leadership roles.

Sedighi’s own journey – from coordinator to manager and then director – shows what can happen when an organisation combines opportunity with trust, support and responsibility. “The journey helped me to progress and give back,” she says.

Managers can support career progression by giving employees opportunities to lead projects, take on new responsibilities and contribute to decisions beyond their immediate role. Regular conversations about career goals can also help identify where someone wants to go and what experience or skills they need to get there.

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For NFPs, creating better pathways into employment for people from refugee backgrounds is not just about opening the door to a first job. It’s about recognising the skills, perspectives and lived expertise they can bring, and creating genuine opportunities for them to grow and progress.

As Sedighi’s experience shows, giving someone a chance can have an impact well beyond filling a vacancy. “We have seen what can happen when people get a genuine chance – not only for them and their family, but for the workplace as well,” she says. “It’s not about charity; it’s about creating fair access to employment and recognising talent that too often gets overlooked.”

More resources:

• Australian Employers’ Guide to Hiring Refugees (Tent and the Migration Council of Australia)
• Employers Guide to Refugee Employment (University of Sydney Business School & Crescent Foundation)
• Learning from eight years of refugee inclusion at IKEA (INGKA Group) (University of Sydney Business School)

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