mm391

Hello,

I am just about to graduate with from an MEng in Mechanical Engineering with top class honours. I went back to university after doing a years working holiday in BC. My visa was organised through Bunac. I loved it so much my drive for doing my degree and getting the best grade possible was the chance to maybe work more permanently in Canada. Does any one have any idea if it is possible to obtain a work visa for a brand new graduate or do I need some for of work experience in the Engineering sector? Being an Engineering masters I was hoping it may be more beneficial than other degrees.

Thanks

Matt

SchnookoLoly

Congrats on your upcoming graduation!

I'd suggest having a read of the various work streams of the wiki and seeing which ones you might qualify for. Most of the work streams require some experience and such. You'll get some extra points in streams like Express Entry, though, for having more education.

Have a look to see if you qualify under the new IEC rules. This year's IEC round has closed, but if you're on top of your game and otherwise qualify then you could apply when the new program opens in early 2016, and get yourself back to Canada that way.

Otherwise it's going to be the standard answers like TWPs and such. Also look into the various PNP programs and see if you might be able to qualify under one of those.

Good luck!

kswoosh

IEC is your best starting place, but it's uber competitive, and won't be open again until the end of 2015/start of 2016.

In the mean time, the best thing you can do is get some skilled work under your belt. Check out the NOC codes, and find something that you can do (as an entry-level graduate) but is considered skilled. This will give you not only good experience, but will give you the all important 1 year of skilled work that's required for an EE application.

Then get yourself over on the IEC next year (after getting 1 years experience) and try and nail a job that is also skilled. 1 year of skilled work with a Canadian employer, plus 1 year skilled work outside of Canada, and you'll have a good grounding for and Express Entry application.

Or, if you're on an IEC, and has an employer that wants to keep you, then you can apply for an LMIA or a PNP (assuming that they have hired you due to a lack of Canadians able to do the job). If you can get a PNP or an LMIA, then you will be pretty much a shoe in for residency through EE (baring any external factors, such as poor health or whatever).

Alternatively, you can start applying for jobs from the UK now. But without experience, coming straight from Uni, you might not be a great candidate for all the hassle involved with hiring a foreign worker. What's more, I'm not sure if you'd even get enough points to pass the EE eligibility.

That's a lot of info to start you off. Everything I've mentioned/explained should be googleable (is that a word?) or you should be able to find it somewhere on this forum.

You're in a good place, there's a LOT of very knowledgeable people here, who are happy to help, but be prepared to do a lot of the work yourself. I'm in a good mood, so happy to start you off, but don't expect everyone to spoon feed you the info

Good luck, and welcome to BE.

johntheScot

Welcome

Your MEng will be good here it should be accepted without out issue to satisfy your educational requirements for your P.Eng licence. First you will apply as an engineer in training then once you satisfy the other requirements such as the PPE exam and experience you will get your P.Eng which is the golden ticket.

assuming BC is your destination look at the apegbc web site details.

The standard engineering education for engineers in Canada is a 4 year Bachelors. 75% only have a bach and out of the remaining 25% with masters i would say 20% are Asians/Indians that have come to Canada to study a masters and stay for employment. Their Bach degrees are often not recognized in Canada so a Canadian masters along with learning English and the availability of provincial nomination schemes for new international graduates of Canadian universities is the main reason there are a lot of masters grads.

Having a masters will not do you any harm but i don't think pushes ahead of Canadian graduates with their bachelors degrees. They also have no idea what first class honors means as their degrees dont have an honor class system.

I came over on a IEC visa 3.5 years ago. i had 8 years experience and found a very hot SK market at the time. AB was also very busy at that time so there was a very high demand for anyone with engineering experience and was visa ready to work. by the time they needed to get a TWP for me my feet were under the table and there was no issue with them spending the time and money on it and as the market was hot the LMIA was no issue. We also had a new graduate who was also on IEC from another country who did the same and is still with us now applying through PN

unfortunately things are now very slow in western Canada so the chances of getting an engineering position as a new grad on an IEC are slim. Companies invest a lot in new grads and want to see a return it could be tricky to convince them of this on a 2 year working holiday visa.

If you did get a job any further TWP or Federal EE would need to be based on a LMIA as kswoosh said. the problem with this is that any qualified Canadian is given your job ahead of you. This can be a problem in a slow market.

There may be a PNP scheme that you can apply for after IEC then go through express entry.

other alternatives to IEC for a new grad would be get a job offer based on a LMIA you would be eligible for a TWP you could then apply for EE once you had 1 years experience. If the company cant get a Canadian grad they should be able to hire you.

or get a couple of years experience in the UK first and you will find it very easy it get into Canada. Western educated and experienced engineers who have English as a first language are in high demand (or will be when oil starts going up again)