In this episode, I am speaking to Luki Danukarjanto, a soft skills coach who spent over 12 years at Deloitte before leaving to do what he calls the more meaningful work.

The rise and rise of AI means the bar for getting hired has gone to the stratosphere. Everyone's resume looks the same (because you know, we are all using the same prompts and LLMs), which means recruiters are having to sift through thousands of applications before shortlisting for a single role.

For newcomers, the timing of all this is brutal. You arrive Canada carrying amazing credentials, years of hard-earned experience, and real competence.

But the workplace is no longer just asking what you know. It's asking whether you can communicate your value, whether you can build relationships, and whether someone would want to work alongside you.

That question has always mattered but now it's most of the hiring game.

Luki and I chat about this and...

• Why "Canadian experience required" is, in his words, the polite Canadian way of saying "I don't believe you can do the job"

• How communication became the single most critical skill for newcomers in this market

• How AI is reshaping what signals employers use to decide who even gets an interview

• What the human skills toolkit actually looks like, and why mindset is the meta skill underneath all of it

• Why "get better at communication" is useless advice, and what to focus on instead

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Dozie's Notes

A few things that struck me as I listened through this week's conversation:

1. The concept of "Canadian experience" gets treated like a credential gap, but Luki believes it's a communication problem. Employers aren't withholding jobs because newcomers lack local context. They're withholding jobs because they can't see the value clearly enough to take the risk. So this probably means that this is a fixable thing, right?

2. "Get better at communication" is useless advice. Nobody gets better at basketball by trying to get better at basketball. You work on dribbling, on your shot, on reading the court. Soft skills are the same. Stand up straighter. Look someone in the eye. Slow down when you speak. Those are skills you can actually practice.

3. Relationships are the real hiring mechanism. As Luki puts it, "It's not what you know, it's not who you know, it's who knows you." Some immigrants I talk to understand this in theory and delay it in practice. They wait until they need the network before they build it. By then, the savings are low and the pressure is high, and asking for help from strangers you've never invested in is nearly impossible. The time to build is before you need it.

Official Links

• Connect with Luki Danukarjanto on LinkedIn

• Read the takeaways from our AMA with Luki

One Ask

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