Wel­come to my new “How To… Canada” series! In this series, I’ll try to put my knowl­edge to good use and shed some light on my new coun­try: Canada. You will learn how some immi­gra­tion tips and tricks, how to improve your pro­fi­ciency in both offi­cial lan­guages, how to find a job, how to set­tle in Canada etc. I’ll pub­lish a new “How To… Canada” post every Saturday.

As a new­comer in Canada, you will prob­a­bly need to get a job as soon as you can: set­tling in a new coun­try is expen­sive. But going job-hunting can be an intim­i­dat­ing task. Here are a few tips to help you find a job in Canada.

Your first goal should be to be assessed:

• Have your doc­u­ments trans­lated: if your work-related doc­u­ments (such as degrees, cer­ti­fi­ca­tions etc.) are not in French or Eng­lish, you will need to have them pro­fes­sion­ally trans­lated (for Ontario, you can use the Canada Inter­na­tional Trans­la­tion Ser­vices).
• Get your cre­den­tials assessed: you may need to have your cre­den­tials (cer­tifi­cate, diploma, degree) assessed by an orga­ni­za­tion. Unfor­tu­nately, this is not free… But on the other side, it will demon­strate how your edu­ca­tion com­pares in Canada and will “speak” to your employ­ers. WES (World Edu­ca­tional Ser­vices) and the Uni­ver­sity of Toronto Com­par­a­tive Edu­ca­tion Ser­vice offer such services.You can get a list of cre­den­tial assess­ment ser­vices here.
• Have a lan­guage assess­ment: if French or Eng­lish is not your mother tongue, it’s a good idea to get a free assess­ment. You need to be com­fort­able enough to express your­self in a for­eign lan­guage all day long at work! If you feel you could ben­e­fit from some classes, Canada has some great lan­guage pro­grams for immi­grants, and best of all, most of them are free (see Learn­ing French Or Eng­lish). Note as well that Canada has two offi­cial lan­guages: French and Eng­lish. Depend­ing where you set­tle, you may have to speak Eng­lish only, French only (Que­bec)… or both (Ottawa)! Read more in Cana­di­an­ism (s): French & Eng­lish.
  

All set? You are now ready to get your first Cana­dian expe­ri­ence! This can be a bit of a catch 22 for new­com­ers, since you need a first expe­ri­ence in Canada to get a job, but you need a job to have your first expe­ri­ence… you can how­ever use these tips to over­come this:

• Use a staffing agency (also called temp agency or place­ment agency): they can be quite help­ful to new­com­ers for dif­fer­ent rea­sons: first, they are deal with new­com­ers every­day and will most likely accept the fact that you don’t have expe­ri­ence in Canada. Sec­ond, a lot of these agen­cies will test your lan­guage pro­fi­ciency, com­puter abil­i­ties etc. onsite, so you will know where you stand. And finally, they will deal with your future employer on your behalf, which can makes things eas­ier if you don’t know the Cana­dian job cul­ture much yet. The down­side of these agen­cies is that even though they offer their ser­vice free of charge for job seek­ers, your aver­age salary tend to be lower than if you would have applied to jobs directly your­self (that is because employ­ers pay the agen­cies a com­mis­sion). Besides, most of the agen­cies offer entry-level posi­tions in very generic fields (call cen­ters, cus­tomer ser­vice posi­tions). That said, a few agen­cies focus on spe­cific fields (IT, med­ical) and if you are qual­i­fied, you may find a great posi­tion. Start with rep­utable agen­cies such as Man­power, Ranstad, Adecco etc. and never ever pay a fee to reg­is­ter (scam!).
• Be open-minded: if you have a lot of expe­ri­ence work­ing in a spe­cific field in your home coun­try, job-hunting in Canada may look depress­ing at first. Hav­ing all your for­eign cre­den­tials assessed and rec­og­nized takes time and you may even have to take addi­tional classes to work in your field. Thou­sands of immi­grants have the same prob­lem every year and our gov­ern­ment is well aware of it. Mean­while, keep an open-mind and look for a first paid expe­ri­ence in Canada, even if it’s not in your field or in a posi­tion lower than your pre­vi­ous one.

So, where would you find job oppor­tu­ni­ties in Canada? Most Cana­dian find a job through those three medi­ums:

• News­pa­pers: they usu­ally have a weekly “clas­si­fied” sec­tion with a lot of mostly local job opportunities.
• Job web­sites: they can be either gen­eral, either focused on a spe­cific field. A few rep­utable web­sites include:  Nice Job, Workopo­lis, Working.com, Job Bank, HCa­reers (hos­pi­tal­ity jobs), Con­struc­tion Jobs Cen­ter (con­struc­tion), CanadaIT (IT jobs), CTen (engi­neer­ing and related), Health Care Jobs, Cana­dian Nurse, Retail…
• Net­work­ing: in Canada’s pri­vate sec­tor, there is a huge “hid­den mar­ket”. You will hear about these vacan­cies that are not adver­tised through peo­ple you know — that is net­work­ing. The best way to net­work is to get to know peo­ple in your field and to keep in touch!

By the time you fin­ished this arti­cle, you should have got­ten your first job inter­view already! So on D-Day, remem­ber a few things:

• Per­son­nel screen­ing: some employ­ers may ask if you have a a reli­a­bily sta­tus, a secu­rity clear­ance or even request a credit report. Reli­a­bil­ity sta­tus and secu­rity clear­ance and usu­ally asked when apply­ing for a posi­tion in (or related to) the gov­ern­ment and you will need to give per­sonal infor­ma­tions for it to be processed. An autho­riza­tion to access your credit report may be asked if you will be han­dling money or be placed in a posi­tion of finan­cial trust.
• Bring ref­er­ences: Cana­di­ans loves them! Most employ­ers will ask for ref­er­ences, that is the infor­ma­tion (name, email address, phone num­ber) of (usu­ally 3) peo­ple you worked with. It doesn’t need to be a for­mer man­ager, it can also be a for­mer co-worker, a fel­low stu­dent etc. These peo­ple will be con­tacted and asked a few ques­tions about you (are you reli­able, what are your assets etc.). Make sure your ref­er­ences know they can be contacted!
• Prove you have the right to work in Canada: do bring your Per­ma­nent Res­i­dent card, your SIN card, a copy of your work per­mit etc. Cana­dian employ­ers do check if you have a legal right to work in Canada.

Good luck and remem­ber: it takes time to get the posi­tion of your dream! As a new­comer, you have a lot of assets and skills but fit­ting in a new job mar­ket requires a bit of patience.

Related arti­cles:

1. 5 Best Cities to Find a Job in Canada
2. How To Learn More About Canada (10÷10)
3. How To Work Tem­porar­ily In Canada (2÷10)
4. Redis­cov­er­ing Canada – Things To See and Do If You Live in Canada
5. How To Immi­grate to Canada (1÷10)