carolg2712

Morning, I was wondering if anyone could advise me if there are any nationality restrictions when applying for the Civil Service in Canada. I am currently a UK Civil Servant as a Project Manager in the Department of Health and Social Care, but also a dual British National / Canadian Citizen and looking to relocate/emigrate at some point in the next couple of years with my family (if I can get all the paperwork updated and finances sorted). In an ideal world, I would consider being a posted worker for the UK Civil Service (and have been using the FCO posted workers website to look for opportunities), but if this wasn't an option, I am looking at potential for jobs in Civil Service Canada.. I am aware that there are some jobs in the UK Civil Service that I might not be eligible for as a dual national, but curious to understand if this is also the case in Canada. I understand that I'll need to look at getting my qualifications (Bachelors Degree) assessed for equivalence before applying, but thought I'd ask the question. I have spent most of my UK career in the public sector at different levels of government, and not sure how well this experience would transfer to the private sector, so for a move to Canada (although I appreciate policy positions and approaches are different), I would prefer to work in an area I have been more familiar with during my career if it was to be a realistic option.

Of course, as a separate thing, this might restrict my Province options somewhat, so I also need to research suitable residential areas around Ottawa in the first instance as I guess that would be the most likely employment route.

Thanks
Caroline

Danny B

All the federal government jobs are posted here https://www.canada.ca/en/services/jo...overnment.html
If you want a provincial government job then Google your desired province, for example this is BC's https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/c...t-job-postings

Good luck getting a fed job though, those jobs are normally reserved for who you know, not what you know.

My advice to you is to decide on where you want to live first, then start looking for jobs. Stick to the province capitals if you are really set on working for the gov.

carolg2712

Thanks for this; i have been exploring that job site, but struggling to find out eligibility beyond evidence of being permitted to work in Canada (which as a dual national should be relatively straightforward if my paperwork is in order). One of the things I'm trying to work out is if my dual status stops me from being eligible to apply.

Regarding the who you know as opposed to what you know - it is something that I've faced in the UK Civil Service too

BristolUK

That probably depends on population sizes. NB's capital isn't the biggest city. We're funny like that.

There are quite a few Federal government departments in my city.

The Gov of Canada jobs website shows 38 available jobs currently for Moncton and 33 for Fredericton the capital.
Just for the hell of it I did Saint John and there are 26.
Further edit - the 38 listings appear to refer to several vacancies for each one, so more than 38 vacancies.

Even more for the hell of it, apparently there are 77 in Toronto. Considering the size difference, that's really not many.

Ottawa - 265

scilly

How is your French?

Many civil service jobs require at least a certain degree of fluency in French. For example, in Ottawa, plus NB is Canada's only officially bilingual provinces, while Quebec would require fluent French.

Former Lancastrian

Dual citizenship shouldn't be a problem unless applying for CSIS or some such job where top secret clearance is warranted.

carolg2712

I noticed that on the website - I do have a high school French certificate but was considering doing an online refresher course as I haven't used it in at least 10 years when I went to Paris for a wedding anniversary.

carolg2712

Thanks - useful to know. I'm assuming that my level of UK clearance won't translate, so figure that would be another hurdle depending on the department I can get employment in.

gaz_c2c

Hey OP,

As Danny B mentioned, depending on your skills and interests, in addition to the Federal government, the Provincial governments offer quite substantial services (Education, Environment, Healthcare, Transportation, Provincial Courts etc.), and don't forget that there are also municipal levels of government.

I'm still only a Permanent Resident and have never received an interview for a federal job but I have received interviews for both provincial and municipal level jobs (none requiring a security clearance). Currently, I work for the Toronto Public Service (aka City of Toronto) and I believe we employ in the region of 20000 staff in our municipality alone. Larger cities will likely have a decent size municipal government, and just around the GTA there are also regional municipalities like Durham Region, York Region, Halton Region, City of Hamilton etc.

My journey to municipal public service here in Canada began as an intelligence analyst with the British Army and then more recently with the National Crime Agency (NCA). I didn't get straight into government work over here though, I arrived in Toronto and ended up working in the university sector for a couple of years. Other non-profit jobs may be open to your project management and public sector experience (universities, hospitals etc.) so maybe that's of interest to you.

You already have the right to work in Canada so if you have the right skills, and there isn't a strong internal candidate running against you then I believe your British experience shouldn't go against you. Of course, every hiring manager is different, and sometimes they may prefer 'local' knowledge but it's hard to mitigate against that when you apply for a job. One other thing, the hiring timelines can be quite long so factor that into your planning.

Good luck!

carolg2712

Thank you - it took me from an application in November to a start date in August of the following year before I got my first Civil Service job in the UK, so long timelines don't surprise me at all

BristolUK

Holy cow. I had an interview on a Thursday and stared the following Monday.

carolg2712

That would be pretty amazing if it materialises for me

Prior to that my longest application process had been about 2 months so even though I expected the process to take a while, the actual length of time was a bit of a shock. Fortunately, I was working for the NHS at the time, so they were very understanding!

dbd33

If you have a chance of producing any evidence of speaking French I suggest you prepare it. My daughter is a civil servant. She attributes her having gained the position, against strong competition, to being bilingual. She's in Vancouver so not an obviously francophone location.

She's mentioned that the way civil service pay works (at least in the area of interest to her) is that she'd be paid more if she moved to somewhere that it's cheaper to live; Toronto or, especially, Ottawa. It's like there was London weighting but you got it by moving to Norwich.

I worked, as a consultant, in Ottawa for a time. I think it fair to say that the government employees I met were paid about a third of what they would be paid in private industry, they did it, as my daughter does, because the benefits are amazing. You can take the legally mandated maternity leave, you get the statutory holidays, if the roads are dangerous you can work from home, it's very chill. How you know when you've retired is not clear to m

scrubbedexpat091

My ex-wife worked for the federal government in corrections took like 9 months from start to actually being hired and working.....

Just getting an interview can be the tricky part too, I worked with a few people who now work with the province, but they all had internships in various departments and then on graduation the province hired them on as employees.

shelley748

You had better be fluently bi lingual and ideally a Quebecan first! Good luck!