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Canadian work experience is something that employers look for on your resume. But how do you gain Canadian work experience when you recently arrived in Canada? How can you overcome this barrier?
Linda Ryan is the National Program Manager with BCCA-Integrating Newcomers, a government funded, Canada-wide, pre-arrival career coaching service for high skilled construction professionals immigrating to Canada (*BCCA-IN).
A career and certified performance coach, she and the BCCA-IN team specialize in helping newcomers plan for, and achieve, employment success, no matter what city or province they are moving to.
When it comes to gaining Canadian work experience, Ryan provides specific advice. Prepare for Canada spoke to Ryan, and here’s what she had to say to those who have immigrated to Canada and are in the first weeks of living the no ‘Canadian experience’ reality. For example, you are qualified and have credentials, but aren’t getting job interviews or offers because you have out-of-country experience.
So, how do you overcome this employment barrier? When you search for your first job in Canada, consider other ways to get Canadian experience that can lead to full-time employment. Employers who state that you have no Canadian experience may be concerned that they are taking a risk on you. Hiring managers may worry that without Canadian experience, you may lack knowledge of the Canadian workplace culture, language proficiency, or important skills and training.
How can you gain Canadian work experience? Ryan offers this solid advice.
Volunteering is one way to overcome the “no Canadian experience” employment barrier. You can improve your chances of finding a job that matches your skills, knowledge, and experience when you volunteer. This is something many immigrants do to get that so-called Canadian experience. By volunteering, newcomers show their interpersonal skills, language skills, and overall professional ability.
As Ryan states, “The trick with volunteering is to be strategic about the not-for-profit organizations and roles related to your career. Invest time looking for roles you are genuinely interested in and that link to your career.”
Volunteering is often part of the high school curriculum in Canada. So many employers look at it positively and consider it a right of passage and civic duty (from a career perspective).
Linda Ryan
Ryan also stresses the importance of being honest about whether you can meet those expectations.
In addition to gaining Canadian work experience, volunteer work can be a great career development opportunity. Volunteer work can help you enhance your existing skills, learn and develop new skills, and network with professionals in your field. It’s also a great way to stay involved while you conduct your job search.
Another route Ryan suggests you consider to gain Canadian work experience is to intern. If you don’t want to go the not-for-profit route, you can look for local companies with roles that match your experience. Also, shortlist companies advertising paid roles (in your area of expertise) and opt for more junior roles where you can easily prove your worth and add value.
Approach the company and offer to intern, unpaid, for four to six weeks to test you out. Ryan offers, “I’ve seen it done successfully by newcomers. But, success depends on your comfort doing this and the employer’s appetite to invest the time and energy to support a role trial.”
Do you want one-on-one coaching to help you continue your construction career in Canada before you arrive? The Integrating Newcomers program is for you if you’re a technical professional e.g. tradesperson, engineer (in any discipline), architect, technician, technologist, project manager, estimator, or analyst. This Canada-wide service can help you get started!
REGISTER FOR THE WEBINARRyan offers, “The more personal and genuine you make the interaction (showing up, dressing well, being open, friendly, and professional), the better the impression you’ll make.
If you can, avoid the cost and time of opting for a master’s degree in your technical field unless you want to do one! Instead, look for a relevant, short, and inexpensive technical course to add to your skills or expertise. Ryan often advises newcomers to budget to be out of work for six months after arriving in Canada. There are many reasons why I suggest this timeframe, and gathering your ‘Canadian experience’ is one of them.
*The BCCA-Integrating Newcomers program is a free, Canada-wide service, focused on helping high-skilled newcomers explore and build successful construction careers. Services include one-on-one career guidance, tailored resume, cover letter, LinkedIn advice, and an in-depth skills and education assessment to help newcomers focus on the best career, credentials and connections activities. The Integrating Newcomers team not only has multi-industry experience but are also immigrants who have built successful careers in Canada.
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If you have recently arrived in Canada, you likely know how important it is to stay positive when dealing with NO!
No! The word none of us like to hear. And when that happens repeatedly, it certainly isn’t the best feeling on earth. For some reason or the other you will keep hearing this word in your initial few months of arrival.
Don’t be disheartened, and stay positive. It is all part of your settlement into this wonderful country, Canada! Just imagine walking into a large hall where you do not know anybody, how would you react? Overwhelmed?! This is somewhat similar. You are walking into a new country, though as a Permanent Resident, but someone completely new and alien to the people here. They know nothing about your:
You need to make your presence felt, your personality needs to shine.
Now as fancy as that might sound, what we all wonder is: how am I going to do that?! It will take time to figure that out. We all did, eventually. A few examples of the NO’s you could hear in your settlement process are:
There could be a few more NO’s! but these I believe, are the most concerning. The immediate next question that comes to mind is How and What should I do to overcome these? So, through my personal experience let me guide you on how to stay positive and steps you could take to smile through this NO! challenge.
Job and money are two of the biggest pain points for most of us but what we often forget is that this is going to be our new home. You need a social life (friends) too. People you can trust, confide, party, relax, travel and do things you can’t do at work. We often leave this aspect of our new life to be dealt with later but, let me remind you it’s a very important feel good factor. We all love to have some downtime and that’s when you will crave your social circle the most. So, invest your initial few days to get to know the:
Join your neighbourhood library for example. You can read up a lot from there too. Most public libraries even have regular events which have good attendance by newcomers and locals alike. Some libraries even have events happening around the city which are free to attend and those could be sweet spots to meet and interact with people. Also, look up google/local websites for events happening in different parts of the city, which you could access conveniently. Never hurts to travel a bit. You’ll get to know your city better ????.
You have tens of years of experience or just good enough, the capability of handling big teams or working in one, a master’s degree or a professional certification or a unique skill set, it all boils down to creating a CV/Resume which matches the requirements and guidelines of the Canadian Market. As we all know it is important to stand out and be seen and a good structured resume can do the trick.
Most of us follow and circulate our old (home country) resume and are often left disappointed to learn that we were not even considered for the position which was right up our alley. It is because of this very reason; not following the Canadian resume formatting styles. You do not need to completely rework your existing resume but would need to tweak and change it to match the requirements of the Canadian standards. It’s just like in any other country so don’t look at it as an added burden of work but as a means to revisit your old and maybe outdated style.
A simple do and don’t avoid blindly copying someone else’s work. Take it as an example and be unique in your own way. See how you could best maximize your experience and skills and design your resume/CV your way.
For more ideas on how to create a Canadian-style resume and helpful templates, download our free ebook:
Don’t you feel that jealousy or anger when you see someone half as skilled or experienced as you work at a good job? I did! No shame in that. But in my first few weeks, I realized that it all comes down to how well you’re connected. How many people do you know and vice-versa? And No! it’s not just on LinkedIn or other social media platforms, but in person. It’s a well-known fact, most jobs anywhere in the world are ‘hidden’ jobs.
There are plenty of organised networking events that take place throughout the city; some formal and some informal. Make sure to keep a regular tab of these and try and make it to a few each month, irrespective of having a job or not. You should always consider yourself new to the country and maximize the opportunity to meet and get to know more people. You never know where life takes you and what you may discover along the way.
An anonymous quote I read comes to mind here:
‘When it comes to networking, a single strong bond is better than a stack of business cards.’
| Networking Do’s | Networking Don’ts |
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Immigration doesn’t guarantee you a job, a home or a car. Now the big question when you arrive is finding the right place to live and the right way to travel. For most of us, our first home is a rental unit/apartment or just a room in a shared space. A good rental is always a struggle to find and when you do, you hear the dreaded NO! Prospective landlords may say you don’t have good credit, references or a full-time job. Now you’re so new to the country that none of the above reasons can be rectified any time soon.
The concerns landlords have in an immigrant-dominant population might sound a bit harsh, but if you look at it from a landlord’s perspective it’s fair too. They could or may foresee a situation where they or their rental unit could be crooked. So, what do you do then? All is not lost here.
Now you can’t wait to settle in until you have a job. You need a home irrespective. So here working around some of the above-discussed points such as building your social life, friends/colleagues, etc. could vouch for you. There have been occasions when landlords track the social media accounts of prospective tenants to investigate the authenticity of the person, so here your local Canadian professional connections could come in handy (at least it did so in a few cases I saw).
Now what good do these activities do? They’ll help you to overcome NO! stay positive, and help you to blend into life in Canada. When you know how to stay positive, slowly but surely, you begin to realize that the initial struggle is a phase and not the end of the world. Everything starts to fall in place just like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. It has never been and never will be easy to migrate to a foreign land and expect everything to go as planned from day one. So, keep hustling, smiling, and have a positive attitude and be ready to stumble, fall and eventually rise. Learn to respect your new friends, try to embrace their culture, habits, and rules and always be ready to help.
My father told me before I left home to settle in Canada “Son, people are not bad! Circumstances make them behave differently”, so always have compassion in your heart and don’t be judgmental too soon and you will be just fine.
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