By Serene Zawaydeh, MBA. April 11, 2015
Are you sure you would have a stable job two or three years after you move to
Canada? Not necessarily. Even after 15 years, you might actually be looking for
a job again after having worked in different jobs.
Although you were able to progress in your career, and you gained experience over the years before moving to Canada, finding a job might be more difficult than you thought.
You might find a job in a new field in which you did not work
previously. So you need to expand your search beyond the fields that you worked
in previously. This is where "transferable skills" come in.
Job Location
Are you focusing your job search on Toronto? You might end up working in
a city that you never heard of before!
International Experience
International experience and education are definitely discounted. While you might have gained 10 years of experience abroad, it seems to be disregarded. Of interest to interviewers will be the months you spent working in Canada.
Competitors
Companies prefer to hire people who worked for a competitor in the industry. Your first job in Canada, does matter. In an effort to get a job and get Canadian experience, you might succeed in getting a job in another industry, diverting away from your initial sector. So you would not get the experience you were waiting to get. It makes it more difficult to get other jobs in the initial area of interest.
Savings
You need to have money before moving to Canada. This money comes from
savings in previous jobs that you held. A good thing for the Canadian banks..
After moving to Canada, you will be spending money that you saved
previously. If you have no savings, don't move. If you think that you'll be
making and saving money, revise your expectations.
Cost of Living
The cost of living rises. Meanwhile, people haven't been getting raises
that correspond with the higher cost of living, and might be getting now less
than what they were getting a few years back.
Finding a Place to Live
Finding a place to live in, is actually tied to employment. A lot of
landlords ask for one year lease, and you are requested to provide proof of
employment, and references from previous landlords. If you don't have a job, it
could be difficult to find a place to live in.
Rent is very expensive. Over $1000 per month in Toronto for bachelor. Over $2000 per month for two rooms. Websites to check: Kjiji.ca and Viewit.ca
If you want to buy a property instead of paying rent, you need to have
the necessary funds for down payment, $25,000 or more. In fact, $25,000 is actually low, as down payment could be 5% of the value of the mortgage.
House Prices
Houses cost over half a million dollars. Houses could be for $600k and more, and although that might seem like a lot of money, houses for sale could be sold within a short period of time at higher than the listed price. The average house in Toronto
costs over $1 million in 2015. In smaller cities, for example, Oshawa, house prices were over $320,000
in 2013. That is lower than the price of a condo in Toronto. The location of the house is important as you will be commuting.
Transportation
A car can become a luxury, and a high running cost! Are you willing to pay $5000 insurance for a car that costs $5000? Are you ready to pay $270 fuel per month?
Public transportation can cost close to $2000 per year per person.
If you are using public transportation, get a monthly pass if you are in Toronto, or Presto Card. If you use Presto Card 31 times per month, you could use claim cost of transit when you submit taxes.
A lot of Canadians who work in Toronto, commute to the city, from other locations, and do not live in Toronto. It could take three hours of commuting every day.
Build Good Credit History
You would need to build good credit history. Make sure to pay your
credit card bills. Your credit history outside Canada doesn't matter. Some
banks help new immigrants with getting the first credit card.
As mentioned in a talk show on June 4, 2015, some employers conduct a Credit Check as part of the Background checks. A low credit score can be the reason a potential job seeker does not get the job in the banking industry.
Job Postings, Hiring
Long job descriptions, with a lot of details and credentials required...
Even a job that might seem very easy, such as cashier at a big store would have
a long description…
Large number of applications received by big companies, while small
companies might not receive enough applications. Big companies could
receive over 4500 applications or up to 40,000 for one job posting. A small
company might not receive the minimum allocated number of resumes for a job
posting.
Companies post the jobs online, after posting the job internally...
Some of the jobs that are posted online have already been filled... but
they are still posted…
You could apply for hundreds of jobs, and never hear from a lot of
companies. This happens especially when you don’t have experience in
Canada.
Contract Jobs
A lot of jobs are contract jobs, and not permanent positions. If you
just look for permanent employment, your search will be a lot more difficult
and a lot longer.
Are you sure you will get a permanent position after getting that first
contract, or after "getting your foot into the door"? Not
necessarily.
Once a contract ends, you are back to a new job search.. which could be longer
than the first.
You need to be lucky more than once in your job search. Being lucky once
is not enough in the contract job market.
Job Titles
You would be considered overqualified for entry level positions, and
lacking experience for higher level positions. How are you going to the
experience if you don't get a job? Great question... yet difficult to
answer!
The job titles are more flat. People could have the same title for
years. Career progression does not follow a steady path as in other countries.
Interviews
The interviews are scarcer than you thought. You might apply for many
jobs, without getting an interview.
Interviews have a lot of behavioral questions, in which you have to
provide examples from your experience. Make sure you learn about “behavioral
interviews”. You need to continue searching if you don’t hear from the company.
Salaries
Salaries are lower than you thought. How high are your salary
expectations?
At the end of December 2014, the average wage for Canadian employees was
$943 a week – just less than $50,000 a year!
http://www.workopolis.com/content/advice/article/how-much-money-are-we-earning-the-average-canadian-wages-right-now/
Mentoring
Mentoring does not mean hiring. The mentor does not guarantee a job for
you. While your objective is to get hired, the objective of the mentoring program is not to hire mentees.
There are numerous stories that you might find, which mention that
newcomers were able to find a job thanks to mentoring. However, this is not the case all the time.
Volunteering
You will be looking for a job to gain income. Meanwhile, you will be
advised to volunteer. Be creative. Look for new volunteering avenues! You might
in fact, get a job, through someone you met while volunteering! As this seems,
it is an indirect, and unstructured way of finding a job, that has a lot of
luck involved! Finding a job requires finding the right person, at the right
time, when they have a job! If you don't meet that person, keep looking.
Networking
Look for networking events and conferences to attend. Some conferences
and events have volunteering events. This is a great way to meet people and to
learn about the market… and can be a way to find a job! However, if you do find
a job this way once, it does not mean that you will find the following job this
way! You have to look for new avenues!
Paid Job Hunt Services
A lot of services are available in the market to job hunters, starting
from resume writing, to job search strategies and coaching. A thousand dollars
is not enough if you wanted to tap into these services. That could be the price
of a resume!
Creating your own job - Entrepreneurship
A lot of people are establishing their own business instead of waiting
to find a job... although it is known that a lot of businesses fail.
Roles You Might Come Across
Free internship for several months. Some programs were terminated.
For example, Bell Mobility no longer offers its unpaid internship
program.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/bell-mobility-scraps-unpaid-internship-program/article19978713/
Small companies that are looking to grow their business, without the
capacity to hire employees full time for longer periods of time to confidently
grow the business.
Financial Advisor positions that provide commission only positions,
referred to as entrepreneurial business. You might be contacted for these
opportunities.
Multilevel marketing or network marketing, and companies trying to grow
their business through word of mouth, providing commission without hiring
employees full time. Referred to as “Opportunity for lifetime earnings”.
Recruiters
So there are a lot of jobs that are posted out there... you might be
applying for lots of jobs by submitting your resume on the companies'
websites... If a recruiter thinks you are a good fit for a position, and it
turns out that you applied on the company's website directly, then the
recruiter can't present you to their client! The companies work with recruiters,
in addition to posting the jobs online.
After gaining some experience and after getting a contract at a company,
you could start get calls from recruiters. However, when you first move to
Canada, you might not hear calls from recruiters.
Recruiters will ask whether you are "incorporated" when you
are looking for a job. You could ask for a higher hourly rate if you are
incorporated. If not, you would get a lower rate.
If incorporated, you will have to pay taxes yourself from the amount
that you get, rather than having taxes deducted from your pay directly by the
employer (or recruiter if you are being paid through a temp agency). This is
why the hourly rate you would get would be higher if you are
"incorporated".
If you were getting a salary from the company, check if EI is being
deducted from your salary. If the job ends at no fault from your side, as is
the case in contract jobs, and if you worked a specific number of hours, you
could be eligible for EI benefits.
Salaries
You might get a specific salary in the first job, then a lower salary in
the second job, then could be looking into a lower salary in the third job!
The salaries for contract jobs are higher than salaries for permanent
jobs.
To convert from hourly rate to annual rate: Multiply the hourly rate by 2
*1000 to get the annual salary.
The minimum wage is $11.25 in Ontario. There are positions in financial
services that start at $12 per hour. Some financial institutions hire part time
for one year initially.
Taxes
Make sure to submit your tax papers before April 30 every year. You
might get a refund, or might have to pay the difference. There are penalties
for delays in submission.
Financial Services Career Map
Continuing Education
Master's and Phd are not the only way of getting education. Consider
Continuing Education courses and certificate programs at Universities and
Colleges. Courses alone are not enough to get the experience needed in the industry and you need to get a job. Courses can help you expand your network and meet people working at different companies.
Check out online free courses on MOOC websites, such as Coursera and
EDX.
Canada's Job Market
Finding a job is not just difficult for immigrants, but for Canadians as
well.
Ontario lost 300,000 manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2011. In 2015,
retailers including Target and Future Shops closed their operations across
Canada, laying off thousands of employees. The retail sector has been an
important sector for part time jobs.
Unemployment
Statistics show that the Unemployment rate for immigrants landed 5 or
less years earlier is 12.1%, more than double the unemployment rate for
Canadian borns. Even after 10 years from being in Canada, the unemployment rate
for immigrants is higher than the unemployment rate for Canadian borns.
Precarious Employment
CBC hosted several discussions about precarious employment and the precarious job market.
In February 2013, an article entitled
"Precarious employment rising in GTA & Hamilton" indicated that only 60% of adult workers in Toronto and Hamilton areas have permanent jobs.
Two years later, the percent of permanent jobs declined. An article dated March 5, 2015 indicated that barely half of working adults in Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area have full time permanent jobs with benefits and some degree of security. Instead, freelance, contract and part time work are becoming the new normal.
"Just-In-Time Jobs: Getting by in a world of part-time, contract and precarious work."
