Okay, so you’ve made up your mind. You want to apply for a job in Canada as a foreigner.  How do you go about it? Firstly, read on from here!

Applying for jobs in Canada as a foreign national

(A few pointers to get you started in the right direction…)

The most obvious and direct route is to see if you can get ‘sponsored’ into work by a Canadian employer who will be willing to ‘hold your hand’ through the process and proved references and much of the legal paperwork required. This does however hold a problem. As an employer in Canada, the employer must prove that they can’t get ‘local talent’ to fill the position and that they must recruit from abroad.

 

This can be quite time-consuming and difficult for the employer, and you really have to be ‘special’ for them to be able to prove this to the Canadian authorities.

The most obvious way for you to help in this process is to be as highly qualified as possible! If you only have the equivalent of a high school certificate, you’re going to find this quite difficult, but if you hold a doctorate in an exotic subject, then you’re going to stand a much better chance.

A way round this may to be look into self-employment if you have a world-class level talent and can make a living off of that talent (or if you have a history of farming experience). This way, you’re not competing with the ‘local talent’, and in a few months time if all goes well, you may well find yourself hiring local people to fill posts in your new company. This is exactly what the authorities want you to do. Live The Canadian Dream!

To give yourself the extra ‘edge’ in looking for jobs in Canada as a foreigner, you must learn to speak, understand and write English or French as fluently as is necessary for the job you are seeking! For example, a cook in a foreign-foods kitchen in Mississauga may not need to be entirely fluent in the English language, while a marketing consultant for a fortune 500 company in downtown Toronto would definitely need to be fluent in one or both of Canada’s official languages.

Using the Internet is an obvious way to look for jobs in Canada as a foreigner, but beware! Many sites (…and we’ve checked out a few and shuddered!..) will look attractive and make claims to find you a job and seem to offer hundreds of positions in just the field you are looking for, but on closer inspection you’ll see they want upfront so-called ‘Administration Fees’. We really can’t stress this enough:

Beware of these so-called ‘job sites’!

And finally, we would strongly advise against  those who just arrived on a tourist visa then ‘disappearing’ a few months later and trying to find work as an ‘illegal alien’ without holding even a permanent residency document. This really is the worst way to go. Okay you may find ‘work’, but because of your illegal status, many unscrupulous employers will take advantage of this and will refuse to pay you even the basic minimum wage in that jurisdiction. For basic wages in your jurisdiction check out ‘Wikipedia’, but as a general rule of thumb, it should be no lower than $8.75 an hour – and this is for British Columbia, set to rise to $9.50 on November 1, 2011. Other provinces may have higher minimum wages than that.

For much more information, you can call Max Chaudhary on 416 447 6118 or email him at max@chaudharylaw.wpenginepowered.com.

Intrigued? Have Questions?

Want to know more about applying for jobs in Canada as a foreigner? Ask the expert!

Connect with me on LinkedIn Max Chaudhary

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