Hi All, I am living in Germany and have recently received my PR after landing in Calgary. Me and my family(wife and 2 year old) liked Calgary very much and are now looking forward to find work and move in. We are planning a "job search" trip of 1 month in September. I have the following questions.
1. Is Sep month a good time for job search ? (Reason for the question : In germany Aug, Sep is holiday season and most people are on vacation)
2. Are there job fairs in Calgary,edmonton that we could attend ? I am working in the area of product management,marketing and my wife in the area of Data entry,Clerikal jobs.
3. We plan to rent an affordable accomodation(max :1.5 k CAD) for about a month. Any recommendations for the search ?
4. Is it necessary to exchange the german driving licence within 90 days of arrival in Alberta ? We landed on June 6th.
Regards

Yes.

In Canada, the big vacation months are July and August, when school children are on vacation. Kids return to school at the beginning of September.

Middle aged people whose children have grown up have more freedom to choose their vacation time, and some of them travel in September. However, people in this group often like to set aside time for a tropical break in winter.

So the bottom line is that there are not enough people away from work in September to make a difference to your job hunting efforts.

Not that I am aware of.

What kinds of products, if you don't mind my asking.

In my opinion, the best for a person in the administrative field is to sign up with two or three temporary agencies when he/she is ready to start working. The agencies send you out on temporary assignments. One of the assignments invariably turns into a permanent job offer. The nice thing about it, is that, by having done a temporary assignment at the company, the prospective employee will have had a chance to check out the place and decide if he/she likes it.

Look at the Furnished Accommodation section of the Wiki article called Renting-Canada.


The date on which you "landed" and activated your PR status is irrelevant. What counts is the date on which you land in Alberta with a view to settling. For example, if you return to Germany after your reconnaissance trip in September, then even your September landing date does not count for anything. The date on which you land, with a view to staying, is the date on which you start counting the 90 days.

The sections of the Wiki that would be useful to you at this stage, if you have not stumbled on them already, include:
Hope that helps.
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Judy is a star.

Thanks Judy for the quick answer. I am working in the area of product marketing for telecommunication and control electronics.

That's not my field and, when you tell me what you do, I don't entirely understand what you're saying. But I have a vague idea, so I'll share my thoughts on that basis.

I know that the oil industry uses remote control systems to turn wells and pumps on and off and that kind of thing.

Go to the Wiki article called Finding Job Opportunities-Canada.

As that article suggests, explore the Canadian Company Capabilities website. Once you're there, search for control electronics, telecommunications, and related terms. You can refine the search, narrow it down to a specific province, and use various other filters. That site contains a wealth of information, and my searches of it often produce promising results.

Next, scroll down the Finding Job Opportunities article till you get to the Job Websites section. Then scroll down further till you reach the Oil & Gas subsection.

Canadian Oilfield and Services Supply Directory (COSSD) looks promising. The front page has a Category Search, which may bring up some useful information. But right now the links on the right hand side catch my attention -- Government, Associations, Industry. From past searches, I know that the websites of associations can be very useful. If you look at the list of an association's members, it can be a virtual Who's Who for a certain industry.

I know that pipelines employ remote control devices, so I'm intrigued by the Canadian Energy Pipeline Assocation. I look at its list of members. And, oh boy, was I right or was I right? Anyone who is anyone as far as energy pipelines are concerned is listed on that page (along with links to each company's website).

If you want to market electronic control equipment, the pipeline companies themselves probably wouldn't employ you. When you get to Alberta, you'll probably end up at the other end of the table, selling to the pipeline companies. But you could phone them and ask them who their vendors are. Then you could approach the vendors and discuss employment with them.

But that's a bit of a roundabout way of going about it, Plan B you might say. Let's see if we can do something more direct.

Let's go back to COSSD's home page and look at the links under the heading of Category Search.

Look at the category called Wireless Products & Services. The key words in the description under the heading are "data" and "instrumentation." I click on the Wireless Products & Services link, and the Data Loggers subcategory looks interesting. I click on that, and find a link to an Edmonton-based company called Dycor Technologies Ltd. Their home page indicates that they operate in two main fields : Data Equipment and Biological Detection. I click on the Data Equipment link, and I find the following beautiful paragraph (beautiful from the point of view that it sounds like a potential fit for you):
The COSSD website has other categories that look as if they might be useful to you -- Communication Products & Services, amongst others.

Okay, atmnet, I've given you an idea of how I go about these searches.

If you haven't already done so, please do read the Wiki article entitled Quick Job Hunting Instructions. It explains what to do with the results of your research.

I hope this has been helpful to you.
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Thanks again judy for the valuable information. Meanwhile another question came up. My plan was to find a new job in Canada before qutiing my current one. Here in Germany we have a notice period of 3 months .Would this be a problem for a Canadian employer that I can join only after 3 months after getting an offer?

It would be a huge problem. The typical notice period in Canada is two weeks. If you have to give three months' notice in Germany, it would be very problematic for the average employer in Alberta. Yes, there are some people who are in such great demand that employers are willing to wait for them to go through the work permit application process, but neither your occupation nor your wife's falls into that category.
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