Hello to all!
I’ve been reading this forum for the past few months now and I think this is one of the best forums on Canada as I visited quite a lot of them. I and my husband received our permanent residency visas and although we always wanted to go we suddenly got cold feet. Well, very cold feet…

Here is more about our situation. We’ve been living in Ireland for the past six years. We are both non-EU citizens, my husband has been working here on a work permit in IT industry all these years and I have a permission to reside in the country as his spouse but until very recently I wasn’t entitled to work.

We finally got our Permanent Residency for Canada but we are afraid of going there now because what if it doesn’t work for us out there we will loose everything we have here. We don’t have much of course, don’t get me wrong… It’s just we’ve been working so hard here to get what we have.

We are still waiting for our Long Term Residency status in Ireland which we thought would be granted sooner than Canadian residency. Without this status our rights are very limited here and if we leave the country we will not be able to return. So we decided to have an exploration trip for two weeks to Canada. We think it is a safer option as we will be able to come back to Ireland to sort our Long Term Residency here.

We need advice on how to use these two weeks to a maximum? What can we possibly do, what we must do within these two weeks apart from applying for SIN and looking for jobs and in general exploring the area?

We are going to Toronto, GTA. My husband is very experienced computer hardware technician; he can also work as a CAD technician (he intends to gain a professional accreditation in Engineering in Canada as he has MD in Aircraft Design). Still, all this info about engineers and doctors working in coffee shops and on factories is very off putting… Could you give us any tips on how to be most effective in our job search there? We have a few contacts in Toronto, friends and relatives of our Irish friends. So, hopefully we won’t be completely on our own.

You see, it’s only one thing that scares sh…. out of us (excuse my French!) – that we won’t find a proper jobs! I had been there before, I was working in hotels and bars in Ireland during my first years. It is no fun to do nonqualified low paid job having degrees and experience in professional field. It is very degrading to feel worthless… I hated Ireland that time. I am terrified of repeating this experience in Canada. Right, enough for now. My post is probably the longest… if you got to the end then Thank you very much ! Looking forward to seeing your opinions, guys.

Second thoughts are natural at the point you have to decide one way or the other.

Think about your motivation to come to canada, does it still apply? Life is for living, will you look back with regret in the future and think "what if"

Dont get pressured into a decision either way, take a little time to reassess what you want from life and decide where thats most likely to happen.

You might as well land when you visit canada, then the clock starts to tick for three years when you really have to make a decision in order to still meet the 720 day / 5 year residency requirement to keep your new canadian PR status.

His skills sound like sought after ones. Read the countless other threads on job search strategies and resume preparation that have gone before here and on the wider internet and you'll be fine. The media loves to jump all over the taxi driving doctors, but its really nothing like as bad as that for the vast majority of immigrants. The taxi and pizza market is not big enough to absort all 250000 skilled workers who come to canada each year, honest! Happy immigrants are no good for circulation numbers.

Good Luck

Thanks, iaink!
Yes, it is part of our plan to land, to have a look and then come back. It's difficult though, honestly we would love to stay and to start living al last! We are soooo tired of waiting and sorting our status issue in Ireland. We are very adaptable, we came to Ireland six years ago there was no system of support for immigrants. Nothing! We were on our own. I did a lot of voluntary community based work to help ethnic minorities, I even got an information project funded. And yes, we want to try in Canada, it is still very appealing to us. We are Russians, we need snow...

We went through Ennis about 2 weeks ago, nice town

Hello JulJul,

Well, you’ve already done all of this once before, in Ireland. So that experience gives you a head start. Since you’ve already jumped through the hoops, what I’m about to say may be superfluous. However, there may be some differences between the situation in Ireland and that in Canada. So, just to make sure that nothing important slips through the cracks, I’ll give you my take on what your chances are in Canada and what you need to do to take advantage of the opportunities.

Job Hunting

If you have not already done so, I suggest you read the BE Wiki on Careers in Canada.

It has information about equivalency of qualifications, job hunting, networking, informational interviews (picking people’s brains about the field in which they work), the Canadian version of a CV, which is called a resume, job interviews, etc.

Doctors

Many foreign doctors do have to deliver pizzas, yes. Canadian doctors have what essentially is a cartel. The system limits entry to newcomers because there are so few residency spaces. However, I personally know foreign doctors who have gotten around the challenge by various means. One method is to agree to work in a remote community for a given period of time. There also are other ways to navigate the system and get into medicine. I also know foreign doctors who have decided not to try to become doctors in Canada but to work in a related field instead. They work in pathology labs, etc. The point is that pizza delivery is not the only option, even in the “closed shop” world of Canadian medicine.

Engineers

As to engineers, I cannot see why a foreign engineer with an engineering degree should have to deliver pizzas. Yes, you do have to jump through a few hoops if you want to become a professional engineer in the Canadian province in which you live. But, even if you are not a professional engineer, you can still get a job as an engineer. The only limitations are that, without the P. Eng. designation, you may have to work under the (usually very loose) supervision of a P. Eng., there may be certain documents that only your P. Eng. boss will be able to sign, and you will earn less than a P. Eng. But the process of becoming a P. Eng. is not onerous for most degreed engineers. If you want to do so, you should be able to accomplish that within a couple of years of arriving in Canada.

Health & Safety

I see from your profile that your occupation is health education, community development, and health and safety. I guess you could go in a few different directions with that. In theory you could work in the public or private sectors.

As a newcomer to Canada, I don’t expect it to be that easy for you to get a government job. Governments usually give preference to Canadian citizens.

As long as you’re legally entitled to work in Canada, the for-profit sector doesn’t care about your citizenship / residency status. However, in the field of health and safety, there is a need for people to be familiar with local regulations and standards. It would take you a bit of time to get up to speed. It would help if you enrolled in an evening course at a community college or technical college.

You would need to be willing to start at a more junior level and work your way up. Please understand that I don’t think you would need to wash dishes, clean hotel rooms or deliver pizzas. You should be able to find work in the health and safety field. If you are willing to do a relatively junior, fairly lowly paid job in that field for, say, three years, you should be able to work your way up to a better paying, more senior position.

I am a technical writer in the environment, health and safety (EHS) field. I do contract work. The project manager to whom I report at my major client company is an immigrant to Canada. She arrived here with a degree in environmental studies, but unable to speak English. Initially she washed dishes in restaurants.

But, once her English had improved a bit, she got a junior, poorly paid job in an EHS consulting company. While she was working for the consulting company, she networked like crazy. (See the BE Wiki article on Careers in Canada to understand what networking means.)

After about four years her networking paid off. She got a break and received an offer of a well paying job in a good company. Since she has moved to that good company, her career has taken off, and she has gone from strength to strength. She now is in a supervisory position with several people reporting to her.

Because you seem to be fluent in English, you should be able to skip the dish washing stage that my project manager went through. She was forced to do that because she arrived in Canada without a command of English. You should be able to go straight to what was her second phase, namely, working in a poorly paid, junior job in your field. Then, if you play your cards right, you should be able to progress to a decently paid and more senior job in your field.

Your resume (CV)

In your case, because you have not been able to work in the health and safety field for some or most of your time in Ireland, the standard chronological resume (the Canadian version of a CV) is not going to work for you. Please take on board what the Careers in Canada article in the BE Wiki says about functional or skills based resumes.

Because your husband is qualified in more than one area, a chronological resume also may not work for him. He too probably would be better off with a functional resume. Every time he sends a resume to a company, he should tweak the resume to emphasize the aspects of his qualifications and experience that match the position. For example, the resumes that he submits for IT and aircraft design positions should look different from each other.

My prognosis for you

So, in summary, my assessment of your and your husband’s chances in Canada is that you should be able to skip the unskilled work phase that some refugees and immigrants have to go through. Your husband may be able to get a decent job right from the start. At a minimum, he should be able to land a job that is in one of his fields of expertise, but at a more junior level than he is hoping to start out at. You should be able to land a junior job in your field.

But do be prepared for the fact that it may take quite a while for this scenario to fall into place. I think it would be realistic for your husband to expect to find work within three to six months of landing in Canada, provided he takes his job hunt seriously and approaches job hunting as if it is a job in its own right. That means spending as much time on it as he would spend in a job. Similarly, I think you could expect to find work in six to twelve months. But your respective searches for employment may end up being shorter than that. I’m just avoiding giving you an overly optimistic estimate, so as to avoid disappointment.

It’s fortunate that you already have a fledgling network in Toronto in the form of relatives and friends of your Irish friends. That at least gives you a starting point.

You have not stated whether or not you have children. If you do not yet have children, you have more flexibility. I suggest that you initially move into a rented apartment. Live modestly and don’t buy property until you’ve figured out where you’ll be working, etc. At least that is what my husband and I did when we arrived in Canada thirty years ago, and it’s what I would do if I were in your position.

Alberta

Now I am going to add something that I have been thinking of saying but about which I have been hesitating.

Because of the oil boom in Alberta, there is work in this province for engineers, for people in the IT field, and for people with knowledge of CAD. There also is work for people in the health and safety field (including H&S work in the oil industry). Engineering jobs, especially, pay well.

You may be interested to know that the area around Edmonton drew a lot of Ukranian immigrants in the early twentieth century. The Edmonton Public School Board has four English – Ukranian bilingual schools (comprised of two elementary schools, one junior high school and one senior high school). There are several elements of Ukranian culture in Edmonton, everything from decorated Easter eggs to chumka dance groups.

Several years ago a Calgary friend of mine went on a vacation to Cuba. While they were there, she and her fellow Albertan tourists met a group of Russian tourists. The Edmontonians in the group were able to converse with the Russian tourists, because they knew Ukranian, and I gather it’s similar to Russian.

The downside of Alberta is that, in the last couple of years, this province has grown much more expensive than it had been previously. Real estate prices, in particular, have shot up.

The reason I hesitated about mentioning Alberta at the outset is that it has gone through boom and bust cycles. At the moment property costs way more than it did a couple of years ago. There always is the potential for house prices to drop because of some unforeseen future event. If you were to buy at today’s high prices, you might have the rug pulled out from under your feet. However, all the indications are that oil prices will remain high for at least the next ten to fifteen years, and probably beyond that. So the chances are that Alberta’s real estate prices also will remain high for a long time to come.

I am not one of those people who tout the so called “Alberta Advantage.” The AA benefits primarily the people who work in the oil and construction industries. The high cost of real estate actually has made Alberta a challenging place to live for people who work in many other industries. There is at least one member of this forum who actually is planning to LEAVE Alberta because of the high cost of real estate.

Alberta also has no call for aircraft design engineers, as far as I know. Canada’s premier aircraft manufacturing company is Bombardier Aerospace, which is located in Montreal and Toronto.

Still, while Alberta may not be the right destination for you, I thought I should at least mention it as a place for you to consider, over and above Toronto.

Disclaimer

Earlier I went out on a limb and offered my prognosis for you. I can prognosticate all I want, but obviously I cannot make any promises.

All the best in your endeavours, whether or not you decide to move to Canada.

Its a tough decision. You'll need all the facts. Then you have to go with what feels right.

If you want a good recruitment agency in Aerospace/Engineering, we found Recruitall to be very helpful and knowledgeable. They are Toronto based but have jobs throughout Ontario and further afield.

http://www.recruitall.ca/

I think being happily employed is the key to successful immigration, so maybe this is where you need to put a lot of your effort.

Judy, thank you very much for your thoughtful reply. Of course we will be happy to start with lower positions in our professional areas, there is no question about it.
How in Canada do they treat credentials from UK and Ireland? I have two certificates - one in Health Promotion from Open University in UK and another one in Community Development from University of Maynooth, Ireland. I am concerned they will have no value in Canada...

Hi from Dublin. You are in a predicament. The Irish residency is probably important for you as it will give you access to the whole of the EU (and snow potentially). The Irish process is probably even worse than the Canadian in that is run by the Irish rules and not a spin off of the British and French.
We have a number of friends who are sticking it out in Ireland to get EU status but it is a long and very tedious process.

On the other hand - do you really want to stay in Ireland? We have been in Dublin for 2.5 years and have found it really difficult to settle and have not enjoyed the rain, rain and more rain. Ok we do get sunshine every now again but not enough for someone who grew up in the Southern Hemisphere. The rest of it is fine and we have enjoyed many aspects of our stay.

I am pretty sure you can do both. Extend your landing until the last possible date on the PR permit and hopefully by then you will have sorted out the Irish issues. Otherwise check the Canadian rules on time to be spent in Canada once PR is taken up. At least the Canadians will stick to the rules they make.

Good luck with your difficult decision.

More often than not, Canadian jurisdictions recognize full degrees from European universities, but not certificates and diplomas.

The only way to be sure is to submit your qualifications to the qualification assessment body of the province in which you want to settle. The provincial organizations are listed on the website of the Canadian Information Centre for International Credentials. The BE Wiki article on Careers in Canada has a link to it, but I know you are absorbing a ton of information, so I have just provided the link again.

The way I see it, they probably will have no value, and they probably also will have some value. That may sound like a paradoxical statement, but I believe it's true.

They probably will have no value in the sense that I think they are unlikely to be recognized officially.

They may have some value in that they may make you attractive to a cheapskate company that can take advantage of your knowledge while simultaneously taking advantage of the fact that you lack official credentials. This may help you to get that first, poorly paid, junior job that I mentioned in my earlier post. Such a job is not to be sneezed at. It gives you that much sought after "Canadian experience" that you can include on your resume when you are looking for your NEXT job in Canada.

If you have any knowledge of, or experience in working with, international standards, such as the Occupational Health and Safety Assessment Series (OHSAS), it can only help you.

I probably should place even greater emphasis on something I mentioned in my previous post. I should tell you that it would not be merely helpful, but critical, that you enroll in some sort of H&S course at a community or technical college. In all fairness to local employers, people whom they hire at even the intermediate level need to be familiar with relevant national and provincial health and safety legislation, regulations and standards. They would not be demonstrating due diligence if they hired unqualified people for anything but junior positions.

They need Irish citizenship for that. Resident status won't do.

Which they should be entitled to having, lived in Ireland for 5+ years.

However gaining Irish citizenship is very tough and can take anywhere from 12 to 18 months.

It can take even longer I guess, we applied though. They have to deal with overwhelming amount of applications as loads of immigrants arrived to Ireland about 6 years ago. Yet the number of people working in immigration division of their Deparment of Justice is the same as 20 years ago. At this moment our plan is to land in May (visiting for two weeks) and then hopefully to relocate in September for good. Still think we have more opportinities in Canada including skills upgrade and qualification recogniction. Canadian system seems to be more flexible. Also I have this thing about Ireland - I absolutely love it in spring and summer and I hate it in winter...