carcajou

See the above.

How badly do you want Spain? You still have two and a half weeks to go and sort your residence there.

christmasoompa

I thought it was until the end of 2020, when the transition period ends? So potentially until the end of the year, plenty of time to move and get residency if the OP really wants to.

But I should caveat this with saying that I know very little about this and am only going on what I've skim read over in the Spain forum, hence my suggestion for the OP to check there first!

Tumbling_Dice

I moved just after I hit 40 to satisfy the wife's desire to be closer to her parents, who lived in Nova Scotia, which is why we ended up here. To be honest, I always loved visting Canada but never really saw myself living here and, if I could have, NS was the place that felt best to me.

In terms of obtaining a job, I made several trips here over the course of a year and found it hard going. Recruitment agencies, in my field anyway, didn't want to meet with me until they had something appropriate on their books and I found that applying on-line was next to futile. I got lucky with one, and only one, on-line application and this gave me my first job (guess that is all you need, but the HR guy has a noticeably different outlook to a lot of people I have met here). Not long after, I learnt about the job fairs for immigrants and spoke to a senior manager at one of the places I had applied to on-line. They were very keen to speak further with me. At this point it hit me that you need to get in front of humans first to get anywhere. Had I read the info on this site first I may have perhaps been more successful quicker.

All in all, I haven't really struggled to find work. There are lots of jobs available in the Halifax region, but finding a quality opportunity will require a lot of grunt work, and a lot of networking. Naturally, the amount of these is way less than in Toronto. Some will argue, perhaps correctly, that there is less competition, although I imagine a per-capita analysis may show not much of a difference. What you are competing with is perhaps the need of the recruiter's best friend's cousin's mother's dog needing a job at the same time. I imagine Toronto area would have less of this nonsense, but I don't know.

If you have some family and friends here you have the beginning of a network and I would suggest you seek to exploit that. I don't know your line of work so I can't comment on the use of recruitment agencies - end of the day, why not try? Also see if there are any job fairs on when you are over. And, when you are here, genuinely think about why you want to move to Halifax / NS. It is all fine and dandy wanting to leave the UK but you need to have some solid reasons to move to another place. Maybe friends and family does it, but have a good critical think about it.

dbd33

Perhaps less but it exists, it's not uncommon for large organisations to have a nepotism program whereby the children of employees get the summer jobs and then are experienced when applying upon graduation. People taking this path are, inevitably, brain dead plodders, but they're effective candidates.

Tumbling_Dice

Interesting to note.

I can't understand how it is desireable. The problem I subsequently find is that this type of person stands in the way of any kind of dynamism, flexibility or progress. They also seem to take it rather thick when confronted with someone who not only knows what they are doing but has a track record of success. Guess that is why productivity in Canada is so low. I can't recall ever having experienced it in the UK, although I am quite sure it exists in some areas - I know, for example, the Northern Ireland legal profession is nepotism central.

dbd33

Law anywhere, surely. I have a daughter in Canada, she's married to a lawyer, his father is a lawyer, most of their friends are lawyers who have at least one parent who is a lawyer. My lawyer's dad is a lawyer. Even the daughter is a lawyer.

I am I said

sounds like a genetic disorder,

dbd33

or a religion

Almost Canadian

As we have previously discussed, this really is the norm in Canada but it was nothing like this in England. IIRC, of all the lawyers I knew, only one had a relative that was a lawyer and he was married to her!

LisaDott

Wow, thank you for such a detailed response - I loved reading about your experience with NS. I agree with you, the more research I do and from anecdotal evidence, I hear it is networking that pays off whether putting yourself in front or a recruiter or through family and friends. In fact, I had a nurse friend in TO from Thunder Bay who had not been able to get her first nursing job out of school for 6 months (she was waiting tables instead). Through a friend of mine's cousin who had an administrative position in one of the hospitals, I was able to help get her a job. A tenuous link but it worked and a perfect example of what we're talking about. I believe you are right I will talk to my family and friends when I visit in May.

I understand the need to have a solid reason to go, especially a move as big as moving country. I'm not happy where I am in the town I live in. I guess most others would look at the stable job I have and the opportunities it might afford and be thankful for their lot and have no desire to leave. I'm afraid that's not me. I've wanted to leave this town for five years now - it was never meant to be a permanent move to here. Life happened and I couldn't leave as quick as I'd want to. I want to move somewhere else by the end of the year is possible - it's just a question of where. Life's too short to spend it somewhere you don't want to be in my opinion. I would be happy to end up in Scotland too (this is also something I'm considering) and of course, that would be a lot easier to do. At some point this year I will make a decision. In the meantime, I appreciate everyone's help on here with making that decision.

As far as Halifax and NS go, do you like the city? How are the people? Is the lifestyle there one you enjoy? What about the weather?

LisaDott

I'm surprised by this too. If you've had to compete with a number of others for the same position, there's a natural hunger to get the job and be good at it when you finally get it. I witness this where I work on a mostly consistent basis (in the UK). The organisation I work in hires all nationalities and with that comes different experiences and backgrounds which mean fresh ideas, new ways of working, and results. How can any of that be a bad thing?

LisaDott

The transition period ends at the end of 2020. I looked into it only this week and even though I knew it was looking, I was still shocked and saddened to realise it's happening and so quickly.

I'm afraid retiring to Spain isn't an option at this time and to be honest it's not where my head's at. I guess I got used to knowing it could always be an option. I know it's possible to still buy a property and live in Europe when we leave but I imagine you wouldn't be able to be resident there for 365 days of the year once we leave. I don't know that for a fact though - it's just my guess. Who knows what it will be like in 20 plus years - we may even have rejoined by then!! (We can always wish...)

BristolUK

I've made this suggestion a few times including a thread more recently where I took some random jobs and compared advertised positions with population. Just a small sample of course. Here's what I said:
Of course the number of jobseekers rather than population size would be a factor - as was pointed out in response - but just how much would that cancel out the big differences? Particularly in this part of Canada.

I mean, New Brunswick is well know for having a far greater number of older people (not working) relative to other provinces. So as well as that smaller population, the workforce and therefore, jobseeker numbers will be lower. The vacancy/job seeker ratio is probably even more favourable than at first glance. I would imagine that in terms of a high % of people no longer part of the workforce NS/Halifax might be closer to that of NB than bigger cities like Toronto.

Of course, the 'who you know' might help to cancel out what appears to be an advantage.