Hi there, I'm new to this.

My husband and I are thinking of moving to Ottawa. My husband works in IT, I work in an office and my kids are aged 8 and 5. I'm basically looking for any hints, tips, useful advice about jobs, houses, areas to live and schools that anyone can give me. I'd prefer to live somewhere quiet/rural even with a good school within easy reach. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

This is a recent relevant thread:

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=611399

Which ended up in the gutter..... strippers and swingers I think I recall

That doesn't sound very Ottawan.

We're a wild bunch but we keep it quiet.

I just watched tow-truck micro-surgery. Most interesting. How he got it on there I do not know. A very impressive understanding of geometry.

Oh yes, we're a classy bunch in Ottawa, especially Stittsville!!!

P.S. Guys - where's the kiddie pics on the avatars???? play nice, we want to see your wee chubby cheeks!

Hi,

We were in Ottawa the week before last and I had a session with one of the high end recruitment agencies in the area - Ray Berndtson. I am at the senior end of the IT profession and am looking for CIO, senior IT Mgr type posts.

Anyway, it appears that there is certainly work available in the area for this type of post and in particular it is caused by the fact that most senior IT professionals are "baby boomers" which again appears to be more of a problem in Canada than in the UK. The outcome of this is that there is a severe lack of strategic succession planning in the IT field. If your husband is experienced and has management talent then the opportunities seem to be there - even now in a turndown.

As for the other questions, there are posters on here with better information that I can give although I would suggest that you look for my posts because I asked a similar question a few weeks ago and got some great replies. We did follow the guidance given and found some nice areas outside the city.

M.

Just a word of caution about the optimism that people are painting of Ottawa. I live here and I can tell you that in all professions, especially IT and High Tech the amount of redundancies are growing. They haven't even finished with clearing their decks and without a doubt Canadian Citizens are having the first pick at the good jobs. There is a definitive move towards employing Canadians before immigrants and certainly new immigrants. Not everything an employment agency is telling you can be backed up. You have to actually get to the interview stage with little or no Canadian work experience behind you.

Don't want to add doom and gloom but please understand that Ottawa is by no means a mecca of good jobs and employment opportunities in these difficult times. Just take what recruitment agencies say with a pinch of salt and don't put all your eggs into one basket, as Ottawa has a mass of very highly skilled, Canadian workers out of work, these are who you are competing with. But Good luck with your search and hope you prove me wrong

WHat are your husband's particular IT skills ?

Don't forget some of the other great spots in Canada. I am in vancouver, on the west Coast and its rated one of the best cities in the world.


Keep your options open and good luck

but the crime (drug related gangs etc) is a bit off putting.............

you'll mainly only see the crime if your out looking for it or involved in it. I've lived in the city for 15years and my biggest issue is the crappy drivers

I'll agree with you on that - some of the driving you see around here is beyond belief!

Just to add my two cents... The IT job market is definitely an employers market at the moment, a friend of mine works as a HR consultant recruiting developers and gets a deluge of resumes every day. On the other hand there does seem to be a lot of analyst / operations positions about at the moment. I was told at the end of May that my company was shutting down its office, I put my resume out there on Monster and was contacted within a couple of weeks. I start the new job on July 20th (its a Senior Network Analyst for a non-profit, government funded company).

Kriss