jonno54

Could anyone tell me how long the process of emigrating takes to canada from the uk.

how can you do it quickly,
alos if you are in canada as temp resident can you apply for perm resident when your there

matt41

What class are you applying for, family, Skilled worker?

port7

I am thinking the same question, I would be going in as skilled worker, but I also have family there. I have totted up my points and I have got 77 (without job offer) and 89 (with job offer). So I think I have a good chance.

I am going over for a holiday this summer so will be making housing and job enquiries then.

But I would be interesting in the timescales involved.

brit_in_fizroy

Just found this site and thought I would add something for you. First, great choice, Canada has changed our standard of living 10 fold.

now your question.
I was recruited by a company here and came over on a work visa. I was allowed to apply for immigration after being here 12 months, then it took another 6 to land. To use this approach you would need to be in great demand - engineers were 5 years ago but not so much now, a company offereing you a job should be able to determine your eligibilty here. The whole process is pretty painless it just takes time - but it's worth it.

port7

yeah, it helps to get recruited. i am in the computer industry not sure what the state of the market is over there. though one of our relatives is quite high up in the motor industry (ford i think) so the plan is to see if he can get me something.

brit_in_fizroy

I'm in the Ottawa area and the last 3 years has seen a downturn in the telecomm business, maybe you've heard of Nortel, if not go look on the TSE and you'll see what I mean. Anyway, there are now quite a few software engineers looking for work and salaries are not what they were. What part of Canada are you looking at moving to?? The only good news for you here is that experienced people are getting picked up quicker than new grads.

port7

i am looking to the london / st thomas area, basically sw ontario. i do network support / consultancy. i am currently working at barclays bank, doing unix tech support / project management. i have about 8 years in the industry so hopefully thats enough experience to tempt employers. i think someone has mentioned nortel to me before, they are up in the toronto area right?

the other option as far as location goes is calgary or edmonton, my brother recently moved to edmonton. though we really do prefer ontario, calgary would be nice. i understand there is quite an IT industry in calgary. home of openbsd too, which i like and use alot!

brit_in_fizroy

Toronto id most definately the busiest place I have been to over here, if you like city life then you'll be okay there. But in Canada you are only ever an hour from wilderness anyway. Good luck on the job hunting, the web should get you to recruiting houses and if you want to know about house prices look at www.mls.ca/mls/home.asp

louisa

we are in canada on work visas (for a year) and applied for permanent residency about 6 months ago. one thing to mention about finding a job here, apart from the fact that it ain't easy, the candidates with north american experience will get the job before you.

brit_in_fizroy

I keep seeing this "north american" experience in a lot of the postings but I personally have not experienced this. Have you been given this explanation verbally or is it an assumption. In this growing world of IT, HR departments are doing less , especially in when it comes to reading resumes. My company uses a software package from Brainhunter to scan all resumes. I have used this to fill a vacancy that I had and quite honestly I did not like it. In a nutshell, the software scans the resumes looking for key words the manager puts into the requirement form, Brainhunter then looks for the best match and creates an A list and a B list. I actually filled my requirement from the B list as I discovered I had to read all the resumes to get the real facts. It maybe that "north american experience" is being placed on the resume scanners and you are getting rejected because of that, and not by a person either, the Brainhunter software does this. If you are applying for a job on-line, be sure to get all the key words into your resume before sending it - that way you will stand a chance of it being read by getting on the A list. Hope this helps!

louisa

no, it's my own assumption! it has been very disheartening not to receive any response, although that seems to be the way things are done here. it's not how we do it in the UK, not in my experience anyway, we always figured that people deserved some kind of reply. most immigrants i have spoken to confirm my assumptiong and other friends have told me that some jobs receive over 250 applicants, and that's in smaller cities.

i did not know that was how HR departments dealt with applications. i'm not sure that i'm comforted by the fact i'm being rejected by a piece of software but it is good information to have! i obviously need to slip some keywords to help.
thanks!

brit_in_fizroy

no problem. My experience here was that I asked for a summer co-op to help out. I got over 300 applicants in total but the software picked around 10 from those for the A list; but they weren't the best in my view they just had the best "hit" rate of key words. What you also have to bear in mind is that new University grads send out 100s of applications - this is what they are told to do and they get expert help with resumes and how to get the "hits" - and you will be mixed up with those. Another trick is to write a cover letter, get it checked for spelling and gramma by someone good at english(or french i guess) and include that in the application, most online application sites accept these. I asked my HR today on this exact issue and they concurred with my thoughts. There are so many people applying for jobs now that the personal touch is just too expensive to sustain. Hope I have been of some help - good luck

louisa

thanks for your advice, it's very useful to get feedback as i haven't had any from the employers i applied to. i did include a cover letter that had all the keywords from the ad but i guess none of them were interested. it would be interesting to know why but, fortunately for me, i have made a contact who is going to offer me some contract work. this will, at least, get me the "Canadian Experience" that can only help!

ClareBC

If you are a UNIX bod - check monster etc. The market for UNIX is none existent out West (BC) and only just alive in Alberta.

Ontario would have more vacancies for your strengths.

Clare

samsx2ht

It is much the same here in the UK now - my husband has been a contractor in the IT world for 10 years now and for the first time ever he was out of work for 6 weeks, we consider ourselves lucky as many of our friends have been out of work for 6 - 12 months. Agents don't call back, they don't call you when a job matches the criteria on your CV that they have on record, one interview he went for in the afternoon, the job had allready been given to somebody that morning but nobody thought to mention it to him and the interview was a farce ! They don't bother with feedback from interviews. It used to be that agents were chasing contractors all the time now its the other way around and rates have dropped by up to 50%.
I think there must be a worldwide downturn in IT - apart from in India of course as it seems much of the work is being sent there because companies can exploit cheap labour.
Christine