Doesn't the client mind you surfing BE and job websites down their VPN? Rather accommodating of them....

Not sure if I was on their VPN or not, I use the machine for all sorts and connect to the internet various ways. I don't think surfing is any sort of an issue for them, nor should it be. A bigger concern might be that I use their machine to connect to other VPNs, but, since they require specific hardware, it's easier to have everything on their machine and just carry that.

Hi Guys

I am very lucky as last Wednesday 7th July I was offered a job that was 90% of what I set out to find when coming to Canada.

I arrived on January 15th and initially took a job selling copiers, printers and scanners because I needed to make ends meet. Whilst doing this job I kept looking using a variety of sources. In total it took me 5 and a half months to get the job that I wanted. Without the copier job I would've spend another £10k trying to survive.

I tried recruitment consultants, job websites and networking all with varying degrees of success.

I landed the copier sales job via a recruitment consultant.

The most successful website in terms of getting interviews and interest was with out question www.linkedin.com . It got me my new job but also generated 4 other interviews. Annoyingly in Canada people aren't upfront about what jobs pay so with several of these processes I invested alot of time to find the money was half what I was looking for.

Monster.ca and Workopolis generated one interview between them and alot of calls and spam trying to get me to work for Edward Jones and various other Financial COnsultant commission only roles.

I also spent money on theladders.ca (similar to higherbracket) I found that all of the jobs on it I was finding anyway by perusing the other job boards.

I also had an interview set up via a freind I met playing football (soccer as they call it here).

Anyway I just thought I would provide a summary of my experience.

I consider myself to be a software sales person but my preferred industry is digital marketing as I like working with marketing people.

Congratulations This is useful.

I got my current job (government in NS) via careerbeacon.com and my new job (IT in Toronto) using Workopolis. No networking involved and I'm in senior management, so I think persistence and having a good work history got my foot in the door. Confidence at interview and having great references (on the phone, not paper) are critical.

As James points out, it can take a very long time to nail something decent. I started applying for stuff in Feb / March, and found out I was in the running in April. I got the job offer last week. If I had been unemployed in the meantime we would have been in the sh*t.

Hi JamesM and Tuppence, very interesting and useful threads thanks for posting.

I was just wondering Tuppence, if you were in Canada when you first started appyling for jobs or did you make the move from the UK and then start?

Happy Days

I came on vacation and got my first job in Fredericton over breakfast in a B&B That got me a work permit.
Then when I had PR, I was job hunting from Fredericton for jobs in Halifax.
The TO job was done mostly by phone interview, and then I coughed up the cash for the flight to go for the final interviews to show how committed I was to moving up there.