Winterdiva

Those who moved with a job, lucky you!

Others like us, who moved without a job, how long did it take to find one? I’m particularly keen on hearing from people in IT ! Thank you

dbd33

Depends don't it. Firstly, IT is a hopelessly vague term, Agile Advocates are a different kettle of fish from those people who crawl under the desk with cables. Secondly, the nature of the position sought and the willingness to compromise will alter the time taken to find a job. Contracts are typically arranged more quickly than permanent positions; last week I wanted a .net person but that was last week and now someone is doing that job, Hard skills are easier to place than soft ones; if you have DB2 CDC z/OS AIX experience I can have you working on Monday; if all you have is a MBA and project management experience, not so much. Location flexibility helps, there's much more work in America than Canada and no one wants to go to Winnipeg. If push comes to shove people do commute to Winnipeg or Baton Rouge or wherever.

Winterdiva

Thanks dbd33. We have Business analysis/ System analysis/ Data analysis skills. Do you work with specific companies?
If I'm not getting any responses for my applications now (even with a great match), is that an indicator of how difficult things will be when I get there?

dbd33

I'm a contractor who supplies some bodies. I have connections with insurance companies and banks. It's the insurance market I know best. In that market it's equally easy/difficult to get hired from there or here. You need an exact fit; specific knowledge of an industry niche, reinsurance, capping, for example, or the technology du jour, Guidewire. That or a well placed relative.

Siouxie

You are unlikely to receive responses nor be successful in obtaining a job when applying from overseas; do please read the articles in our job hunting section in the wiki - it contains very useful info. https://britishexpats.com/wiki/Categ...Hunting-Canada
https://britishexpats.com/wiki/Hiring_Culture-Canada

dbd33

I think this information implies taking an approach to job hunting which puts the cart before the horse.



The way I went at getting my first job in Canada was to pick up the newspapers in England (yes, there were physical trade papers in those days) see where jobs were offered and then whittle down the countries. South Africa, looks a bit dangerous. Australia, long way, what if we don’t like it, how would we afford the airfare back? USA, guns everywhere, no healthcare. Canada! They speak French there, let’s go to Canada. Of course we got the last two way wrong but that’s what we thought at the time.



In Canada I had some children. One took up with a partner and they decided to emigrate from Canada. One spoke English and French and one English and Italian. They decided to go to an English speaking country as, in one of those, they could both get jobs from Canada. They were both EU nationals so the only barrier to going to the UK (at that time) was IELTS (or whatever it’s called). They took their tests and off they went.



I don’t think choosing the location and then trying to find a job there works very well. If, for example, you’re a farrier and you dream of life in the desert, you’ll need to find out if camels have shoes. It’d be better to give up on the desert and move to Kentucky. The location based approach is particularly ill suited to computing as, in computing, people commute really long distances (to here from Texas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Atlanta, for example) or work remotely (to here from India, Dublin, Portugal).



If you really love a place, or a person from that place, and are committed to moving there then loss of career may be a price worth paying.

CanadaJimmy

Get your resume up to standard, make it stand out. Try and fit it all on one page. Use clear presentation and open with a good personal profile.

Sign up for Indeed.com and get your resume data on there.

Speak and write in clear english, no slang terms or informalities in messages, emails and phone calls. Even though you will have a British accent you want to sound Canadian as possible. Avoid self-deprecating humour or joking criticisms of the person or industry, irony like that is not understood here.

With a great match in an in demand industry you should be able to find something within 1-3 months. The worst time to job hunt is Nov-Jan as nobody is hiring close to the holidays.

Atlantic Xpat

This. That's why I'm in Newfoundland. I haven't lost my career, indeed I moved over with a job that was arguably a step up from the one I had in UK. But that only lasted a year and then I languished in a mid level role in a small company that was spectacularly poorly run. I learned from the experience - you can get something out of any position - and there was the occasional moments of joy (the need to travel to the GTA gave me the opportunity to drink beer with you, for example, but it wasn't a happy time. It did take me 9 years to really get a good job though. Although I'm not in IT of course. I have a real job... :-)

dbd33

If drinking with Novo and I was the highlight of that era, well, I expect that alone made all the sacrifices worthwhile. I'm not a professor of course. I have a real job.

Shard

Dedinitely not understood. "Why are you always putting yourself down?" F.O.

Novocastrian

'ere. I heard that!

BobbyN

I work in software and tech.

When I first arrived in canada on a WHV I immediately started applying and must have sent 100 applications and the results of that being 4 interviews. One of which I got and kept.
1) Resumes in Canada are slightly different to UK. I created 4 versions depending on the job I was going for and each of those included keywords and outline of experience necessary to that job. Reason being in Canada they use software in many places to filter through resumes. This is not to say I made up 4 different versions, everything in them was truth just worded differently using different wording.

2) I kept a spreadsheet detailing each application I made, number I had contacted, how I came across the job. This was to ensure I did not accidentally apply for the same job twice with a different resume.

3) If you do not have a western name, use a westernised nickname (its fine) , sadly canada is still massively racist under all the niceness and sorrys

4) the Job i eventually accepted was at a lower level that I had worked in previously but the opportunity to rise up in ranks was evident and it worked out very well in the end for me. So do not be afraid to take a pay drop or job drop if you can see that it is a growing company.

5) for tech and IT the GTA is the best bet

There are lots of good startups and tech companies in Canada. Use Glassdoor and other tools available to search.

dbd33

Bollocks. IT in Canada has plenty of arseholes, it has a rampant nepotism problem, but it does not, IME, have a racism problem. This very morning I submitted a target list of people to try and poach for our team; Jeby, Manoj, Hideki. We need one of them if we can't get "the Finn".
The first, fair enough, is a truncation of a long non-English name but it's not hugely westernized. The others are transliterations of the original foreign language names. In any event, my boss for this project is Korean, she doesn't have a bias toward westerners. Everyone here knows where Mecca is because we see developers on mats pointed that way every day. Some people may not like that but someone will always dislike any distinctive trait of their colleagues. Since everyone is from somewhere else, the business has to run on tolerance.

People do get rejected for reasons related to being foreign, a Nigerian's contract has been cut short and will end today. It's not because he's Nigerian, it's because his English isn't good enough and that, I think, is the issue in many hiring/un-hiring decisions that may appear racist.

julescg26

I second the BS on that point too - I'm in Halifax, mostly Java development, but we also have BA's galore. Halifax has quite a large IT industry, most of the people on my team and company do not have western names!
It took me a 2 months to find a job here, that was in July 2012 and I'm still in the same job.

dbd33

Several Indians I've worked with here have also worked in Halifax or left here for a contract in Halifax. Deloitte, for example, seems to have lots of them.