suziequ

While searching for jobs, I came across a company called Jobera that distribute your Resume for you.

You tell them which industries and area you are interested in and they distribute your resume. Apparently.

Does anybody have any views on these sorts of companies?

It will cost us $106 to send a resume to about 500 companies

Sue

Scouse

Do yourself a favour, and save your money. Unless you have exceptional talents/abilities/qualifications etc, you will not get a job offer from Canada while you are still in the UK. It is only when you can actually meet your prospective employers face to face that you really have any chance of getting a job offer in Canada. I may be wrong, and for your sake I hope I am, but this seems to be the norm

Best of luck

Scouse

Judy in Calgary

Totally agree with that.

The UK address on the resume will blow the resume out of the water. The recruiter is unlikely to read past that before he/she throws it in his/her waste paper basket.

This approach also involves employing a fatal flaw, a generic cover letter that is sent to all recipients of the resume. One of the central points of a cover letter is to draw to the prospective employer's attention how the job applicant's skills and experience complement the needs of the company and of the specific position. It's impossible to do that with a standard letter that is sent to 500 (or even three) companies.

That's IF the people who run the web site even send the resume as they claim they will do. I don't know if they will send it or not. Maybe they will. I don't know anything about them. However, as far as I can ascertain from the web site, there does not seem to be a mechanism for checking their performance.

Not that it really matters whether or not they actually send the resume. Even if they do send it, it will be an almost useless gesture in my opinion.

Sorry to be a wet blanket. However, as the saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

dbd33

I disagree with the advice above and have hired someone into Canada on the basis of an unsolicited inquiry. The person hired is a South African who was working in Saudi. I knew of him from a work related online discussion group and he wrote to me on spec looking for work. I expect he wrote to all other list subscribers living in Canada but, if it's an email, there's no cost so, why not ? I would think that it would be possible to track down a trade association for most kinds of work in Canada, get a member list and start emailing them, if no one replies you might wonder if your trade is actually in demand. The key is, I think, to make the tag line simple "I am an experienced plasterer with City and Guilds looking for work in Canada" would certainly grab the attention of any of the contractors around here. After that there can be a telephone interview and/or photos of work performed sent, ultimately the prospective employer can phrase an offer so as to make the risk to the firm minimal.

Something important is to write everything coherently. Someone comes looking for work every day, by email, by telephone, sometimes in person. Few of them are literate in English and those who are often bullshit. One mention of "paradigm" or "proactive" or one major spelling error and I just tune out.

Judy in Calgary

Two points.

In another thread suziequ had said her husband was an engineer. I take that to mean an engineer with a degree in engineering (and perhaps even a professional engineer in the UK).

Furthermore, she was enquiring about a company that charged $106 to distribute the resume on the job applicant's behalf.

I stand what I said before. Engineer + UK address + cover letter that has not been massaged to appeal to a specific company = extremely high chance of going nowhere, in my opinion.

If you change one factor, the whole equation changes. If you're not paying someone else to distribute the resume and you're contributing your own "sweat equity" by e-mailing the resume, at least you're not $106 out of pocket.

If you belong to a trade, that too changes the equation.

dbd33

One small point. By "trade" I meant transferrable skill somehow documented, bricklayer, doctor, accountant, dentist, candlestickmaker; not specifically any type of employable skill. "I am a chartered accountant who craves winter" would , imo, grab the attention of the recipient as well as "diesel mechanic craves frost".

hot wasabi peas

Did knowing of him make a difference to your decision or help catch your eye?

suziequ

Mixed opinions.

OK so what is the best way, book a flight and come over to Canada and go to all of the relevant companies.

Have tried phoning a few companies but cant get past receptionist, they all say that HR dont take phone calls.

Sue

dbd33

Not to the decision but, yes, the opening line "I've seen your posts on ......." was a strong one.

seacreature

Sorry, but I think that's a waste of time and money.
As soon as they see your UK address it'll go straight in the bin.
Why employ someone 2 thousand miles away when there are thousands of applicants already in Canada?
The only people who will find success this way are those who're highly specialised or in extreme demand.
In all seriousness you'd be better off trying to make friends and contacts in Canada on-line.

mhhp

I agree with Judy. If you research the web you will find lots of articles on scams of that sort 100$ is a cheap one. I have heard of people paying up to 10000.

roll up your sleeves, start Networking, keep running the monster and Workopolis searches and start contacting Headhunters, you may get lucky (I am still doing the same thing) but your chances will improve 100fold as soon as you are in Canada with a lokal address and no visa/PR risk.

Good luck

Jonny

I agree that it's probably a waste of money and you could do the same thing yourself and save yourself the money by writing a generic email with a CV attached and then send it to all email addresses you can find by googling the words "engineer" and "canada".

But I think I disagree that a potential employer will throw a CV in the bin as soon as they see a UK address. Especially if you are emigrating anyway (and not looking for HRDC job offers to get into Canada in the first place) and can give them an estimated date of when you will be arriving in Canada. When i was sending CV's off from the UK I explained that I was coming over as the spouse of a Canadian and would be arriving in Canada on a certain date. One response I had was from the CEO of a company who told me to give him a call when I arrived to meet up with him for a chat and a tour. So I did that when I landed on January 11th, and I started working for them on the 17th... Not bad eh?

I think that quite often you will find that if you are lucky enough to get a response at all,then it will be on a personal level, rather than from a HR dept offering you an interview. In my case the CEO who emailed me was a UK expat himself who had been here for 20 years and he told me in his email that I reminded him of himself 20 years ago (he also came over as the spouse of a Canadian). So I got my foot in the door just by being a UK expat! and as a result, the job I ended up getting wasn't even advertised.

I think that the best approach to getting a job in Canada from the UK should be to email as many companies as possible with a personalised cover letter with a CV attached, explaining your PR application and give them an estimated arrival date in Canada. Don't just send them to HR dept's, but check out their website and find email addresses of CEO's, President's, and others that work there already. If you get nothing, then follow that up with a phone call when you arrive or turn up in person and drop off a hardcopy CV. In my case I was expecting to be working at Starbucks or Safeway or something like that for the first few months and anything else was a bonus. Luckily everything seems to have sorted itself out nicely and our new life in Canada is fantastic!!

dbd33

I don't understand how a local address helps in finding a job. Thinking about it, before the South African, I hired an American who was in Virginia, a Canadian from out of province and a French Canadian who was in France but wanted to come home. I got my job in Canada while living in the UK and, since being in Canada, I've bid successfully on jobs in most US states, several European countries, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia and probably in places I've forgotten.
Location at the time of applying seems irelevant to me.

What we can say for sure is that not sending a resume to prospective employers in Canada will result in not getting a job in Canada. I'd start emailing.