triniangel

Hi

Can anyone give me some pointers as to job hunting when I reach Calgary in July to settle. I am a school teacher at present. I already sourced a place to stay so that is out of the way.
thks

Judy in Calgary

It depends on whether or not you have obtained accreditation as a teacher in Alberta. If you have not yet obtained such accreditation, it depends on how soon you need to earn money. On the one hand it's possible that you have enough resources to support yourself while you attain accreditation. On the other hand you may need to find alternative employment while you seek accreditation.

I'm wondering if private schools (Christian schools and such) accept teachers who have qualified in other jurisdictions but are not accredited in Alberta. I don't know whether or not they do. However, it may be worth your while to do some research, since it might be an interim solution.

I remember another poster giving you an excellent link that listed websites of all the school systems in Alberta. Maybe it was all the school systems in Canada. I don't remember the details. However, I recall thinking at the time that it contained enough information to enable you to contact all the potential employers of teachers in Calgary.

Something else you may need to do (depending on how similar or different Trinidad's CVs / resumes are) is to Canadianise your resume. I have a vague recollection of having mentioned that to you in a previous thread. If I did not mention it before, just do a search for RESUME on the Lifestyle & Culture - Canada forum, and heaps and heaps of previous threads will come up.

I seem to remember mentioning to you that, if you sought work other than teaching, you would need to devise a functional rather than a chronological resume, to demonstrate to potential employers how your skills and experience relate to their enterprises. In fact you'll need a chronological resume, a functional resume, and a combined resume. You'll probably need a basic resume in each of those three formats. However, it always helps to tweak your resume before sending it to a specific employer. I would think that tweaking process would be all the more important if you were to apply for non-teaching jobs. In that case the ways in which your teaching experience were relevant to other jobs would change from position to position.

Beyond that, it depends on what kind of employment you're seeking. If you want to apply to school boards for teaching positions, you should apply to them directly. (That link that you were given previously will come in usefully for that.)

If you're willing to stock supermarket shelves or flip burgers, just walk a few blocks in any direction from where you're living. There are Help Wanted signs in stores all over Calgary.

If you want to use some of your teaching skills outside of the school system, it will be a bit more complex to figure out how you can do that and which organisations you might target.

Here is a website that lists Calgary's Employment Services for Immigrants. The three listed organisations all hold classes in career planning, resume writing, interview techniques, etc.

I've just phoned the three organisations in question and asked them some cursory questions. The organisations are:

All three organisations are funded jointly by the Alberta and federal governments. Each of them said that they hold free classes for newcomers. In the case of the Catholic and Mennonite groups, they confirmed that you do not have to be Catholic or Mennonite to avail yourself of their services. Each of them operates a little differently. For example, the Catholic organisation is willing to make an initial appointment to see you even before you've arrived in Calgary. The woman with whom I spoke said that it took between a week and ten days from the time of the call to get an appointment. In the case of the Mennonite organisation, on the other hand, you have to be in Calgary with a Permanent Residence card and a Social Insurance Number before you can make an appointment.

The woman at the Catholic organisation told me that there was lots of work that teachers could do. She said her organisation advises teachers from other countries on how to go about getting accreditation. If they are not going to work as teachers in the school system but nonetheless want to tap into the knowledge and experience that they acquired as teachers, the organisation helps them to figure out how they can do that too.

You can look at job ads in the newspaper, you can look at websites like Workopolis that post vacancies on the Internet, and you can contact employment agencies. However, I honestly believe it's in your interests first to attend newcomers' workshops offered by one of the organisations that I listed above. They will explain to you how the local system works.

If you do a word search on this forum for job hunting, you will see comments to the effect that most vacancies exist in a hidden job market, that is, they are not advertised, and people hear about them by word of mouth. To hear about vacancies, especially in the private sector, you need to network. That means telling everyone you meet, the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker, that you're looking for a job.

But you can leverage your networking efforts if you hang out with people who are in the line of work that you want to break into. For example, my older son, who has just graduated with a degree in computer science, is attending meetings of Linux users' groups, Unix users' groups and the like. He is getting leads from fellow meeting participants. He's a fan of Unix, and he already had been hanging out with a group of Unix aficionados long before this. I mention that only as an illustration of an approach that is somewhat more targeted, and I believe more effective, than telling the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker . But you just never know. The B, the B and the C may be able to give you leads too.

The public sector, into which the school system falls, is a bit different from the private sector. Although I've never worked for the public sector, my observation is that it is more transparent about posting its vacancies. As far as I know, the school system does not just hire the friend of a friend of a friend without advertising the position.

Anyway, I go back to my point about doing free workshops through the non-profit organisations that assist newcomers. As a starting point, I believe that will be your best bet.

I want to point out to anyone else who reads this message that this advice is addressed specifically to you. If other posters are qualified to work in the oil industry, the employment agencies have a lot of good leads at the moment. Also, anyone who is qualified to work in the oil industry should look at the Canadian Oil and Gas Directory to identify the companies that operate in his/her field. A good way to network is to attend the functions of a relevant professional or career organisation (geologists, engineers or whoever).

Hope that helps.