Cana­dian Flag on Par­lia­ment Hill

Wel­come to the “How To… Find A Job In Canada” series!

Say­ing that last year wasn’t great eco­nom­i­cally speak­ing is an under­state­ment. Pretty much all coun­tries world­wide suf­fered from the global eco­nomic down­turn and Canada was no excep­tion. Yet, a lot of peo­ple are still con­sid­er­ing mov­ing to Canada, while oth­ers are already in the process and are prob­a­bly wor­ried about whether they will get a job at all.

There is no easy answer when it comes to employ­ment. You know the story… a bit of patience, a bit of skills, a bit of luck.

I’m not a job coun­selor, and I’m not an expert. But I do know how it works in Canada and I’m hop­ing to pass along some infor­ma­tion that may not be obvi­ous to every­one. A post will be pub­lished every Sat­ur­day… enjoy!

Most new­com­ers to Canada, no mat­ter whether they were cho­sen for their skills or joined some mem­ber of their fam­ily, expe­ri­ence some work-related issues at one point or another.

The Prac­ti­cal Barriers

If you are a per­ma­nent res­i­dent in Canada, or hold some kind of work visa, you are enti­tled to work. Now, get­ting your SIN card and mak­ing a resume is easy, but keep in mind your immi­grant sta­tus may some­times lim­its you to some extend.

• Tem­po­rary work­ers: some visas are tied to a spe­cific posi­tion. If you lose the posi­tion, no mat­ter why, you may lose your visa and have to leave the coun­try. A lot of tem­po­rary visa holder do not real­ize that: they feel secure and start set­tling in Canada… some even buy houses. But some­times, things don’t go as planned. I heard a lot of sad sto­ries last year: with the eco­nomic down­turn, some tem­po­rary visa hold­ers lost their posi­tion and were asked to leave the coun­try. It led to dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions for those who had kids at school, a mort­gage to pay etc.
• Per­ma­nent res­i­dents: they also face some issues, although they are enti­tled to work any­where in Canada with­out any time limit. For exam­ple, per­ma­nent posi­tions at the fed­eral gov­ern­ment are noto­ri­ously impos­si­ble to get when you are not a Cana­dian cit­i­zens. This can be a prob­lem is you live in a city where the fed­eral gov­ern­ment is the main employer, like in the National Cap­i­tal Region.
• The secu­rity clear­ance issue: some jobs require prospec­tive employee to hold a secu­rity clear­ance, which it is a loy­alty and reli­a­bil­ity assess­ment done by CSIS. This is to pre­vent any­one of secu­rity con­cern from gain­ing access to sen­si­tive gov­ern­ment assets, loca­tions or infor­ma­tion. I had to get one, because I was teach­ing civil ser­vant and going in var­i­ous min­istries! While the check in itself is usu­ally not a prob­lem, when you are a new­comer, CSIS must access for­eign data to assess your reli­a­bil­ity through your past crim­i­nal his­tory etc. It can take from a cou­ple of weeks to months. This some­times dis­cour­age poten­tial employ­ers from hir­ing a new­comer because they know the secu­rity clear­ance may be long and difficult.

The Cana­dian Expe­ri­ence Catch 22

This is prob­a­bly the most com­mon and most annoy­ing issue for new­com­ers: employ­ers want you to have some expe­ri­ence work­ing in Canada, but to gain some expe­ri­ence… you must first find an employer will­ing to give you a chance!

There are dif­fer­ent tac­tics here. You may want to:

• Start with a lower-paid job: at least, you will pay the bills and gain some expe­ri­ence while learn­ing more about Cana­dian workplaces
• Vol­un­teer: employ­ers value vol­un­teer expe­ri­ence and it’s def­i­nitely some­thing to put on your resume. You can learn a lot about your new coun­try and even start build­ing a net­work. Unfor­tu­nately, you most likely won’t be paid, which is a prob­lem if you have to sup­port a fam­ily or are already on a tight budget.
• Use a place­ment agency: I per­son­ally used this method. Place­ment agency have their own test­ing sys­tem (for exam­ple, for admin posi­tions they will test your com­puter skills etc.) and are a bit less picky about ref­er­ences and Cana­dian expe­ri­ence. They may send you on trial for a tem­po­rary posi­tion and if you do good, you will get pre­cious Cana­dian ref­er­ences and work experience.

One thing is sure: when mov­ing to Canada, don’t expect to find the exact same posi­tion and stan­dard of liv­ing as you had back home. Gen­er­ally speak­ing, you will need to step back a bit in order to move for­ward in the future. Immi­grat­ing is also a learn­ing expe­ri­ence after all!

The For­eign Cre­den­tial Recog­ni­tion Issue

This issue is a seri­ous one, and it’s a total eco­nomic non-sense.

Skilled worker are selected based on their edu­ca­tion and their work expe­ri­ence to fill staff short­ages in some fields. How­ever, once in Canada, these new­com­ers real­ized that their expe­ri­ence or cre­den­tials are not rec­og­nized. It’s the “taxi dri­ver” phe­nom­e­non — the sub­stan­tial under­uti­liza­tion of immi­grant skills.

This is mostly due to the fact that some employ­ers under­es­ti­mate for­eign cre­den­tials, or may pre­fer Cana­dian edu­ca­tion. New­com­ers may then have to obtain Cana­dian cer­ti­fi­ca­tions or degrees to advance in their career.

Some pro­fes­sions are also reg­u­lated, which means that you need to apply for a license (usu­ally a provin­cial one) to work in these fields. Require­ments vary by province. There are over 140 reg­u­lated pro­fes­sions, most of them in high demand for immi­grants because they suf­fer from skill shortage!

In order to meet their profession’s licens­ing require­ments, most immi­grant will have to:

• Take a lan­guage test if you stud­ied in a lan­guage other than French or English
• Take an exam­i­na­tion to demon­strate your competences
• You may have to take com­pul­sory classes at a Cana­dian col­lege or uni­ver­sity to bridge the gap between the require­ments and your for­eign education

This can be extremely stress­ful, not to men­tion expen­sive, for new­com­ers to Canada. Some may then give up on their train­ing and work in low-paid job, just to make a living.

Unfor­tu­nately, the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment doesn’t really inform prospec­tive immi­grants that they may not be able to prac­tice the pro­fes­sion they have been cho­sen for. So it’s up to you to research your field before you move to Canada!

Related arti­cles:

1. 3 Qual­i­ties Job-Seekers Must Have
2. Find­ing Job Oppor­tu­ni­ties (3÷10)
3. Get­ting Your First Job in Canada, The Chal­lenge Never Ends
4. 5 Cana­dian Work Cul­ture Tips (9÷10)
5. Use­ful Links For Immi­gra­tion (10÷10)