Finding your first new Job in Canada

I'm surprised I haven't thought about a guide to help people find their first job in Canada!  I'm thinking about it these days because I am job hunting myself again now.

I think it is very hard to find a job before you get here.  Canadians really life to find people with Canadian experience, I'm not very sure about what that means and what you can do about it. I can only imagine they prefer you have experience working with Canadian and not making cultural gaffs.  From a broad perspective you want to find Jobs on LinkedIn, Indeed or Job Bank.  These are the primary sites that Canadian Employees use to post their vacancies.

The second thing you need to get sorted is your resume.  C.V.'s are not the term and the resume needs to be short, only two pages.  Remember that a recruiter is only going to spend a few seconds on it so you want the important information right up front and on top.  A good summary at the top under your name is a good place to start.  Getting too fancy with the formatting is not a good idea because you can make it hard for a recruiter to read the information.  Even for a bot to read it too, because lets face it, there are a lot of recruitment bots now these days that score resumes.

Hunting for a job myself reminds me how important Network is. That is obviously hard to deal with as a person new to Canada.  The good news is that Canadians are always willing to help.  Remember, no-one is going to give you a job out right, but if you ask them to be a reference, or to put your name forward, you will certainly get more opportunities.  I reach out to people on LinkedIn and try to connect with them, also go to networking events and ask people to connect with you on LinkedIn.  You might be able to find someone in a company you are applying for and then you can ask them to put your name forward.  The other day just finding the recruiter helped me get an interview.  The Government helps and there are many "Bridging" programs out there!  They have two advantages, they help you perfect your Resume and they give you Canadian experience!  For me I used the office in Markham from JobSkills.  Their address is 4961 Highway 7, Units 100-101, Markham, L3R 1N1.

Personally it took me a full three months to find my first job.  I also got lucky, I had a specific skill match in the field I was looking for.  A friend of mine took a bit longer, but did some volunteering at her local church to get that Canadian Experience.  I do hear of a lot of people doing ride sharing or food delivery.  These are ways to earn quick cash, but take away from the time you spend trying to find work.

Finally I want to share there are definitely seasons in the Job hunting market here in Canada.  Summer and January are very quiet periods.  Summer is when everyone is taking vacation, it takes a while to line up interviews with line managers and then the recruiter is on holiday, you will need to be extra patient in the summer months of July and August. Then on top of that people are quite slow the end of December and in January, this is the same around the world.  The end of the year is often a time for family and reflection.

All the best of luck to you!  I hope you find what you're looking for soon!

Canadian Banks - An Immigrants Perspective

One of the first decisions you have to make is which bank you will bank with. It's not an easy decision

since there is not much difference between the main banks here in Canada.  I guess the first thing you will learn is that the Canadian banking system is really backwards.  Other countries are far ahead of Canada when it comes to modern banking, we have still used cheques when completing certain transactions here.

This is the list of the big banks in Canada: RBC, Scotia Bank, BMO, CIBC and TD Bank.
They all offer newcomer packages. there are often specials, for example, get an iPad when you open an account with them etc.  I don't like them because they all come with too many terms and conditions. However, it is important to compare the newcomer packages and you can decide which bank is important for you.

When we arrived we ended up going with TD Bank, our main reason was that they had the best credit limit to offer us and the Bank fees were zero if you held a balance.  Actually, that is the top priority you have when coming to Canada, you need to improve your credit score.  You can do this in a multiple of ways, use the credit card, take out a small loan, but just getting a cell phone account helps too.

Here is a comparison of the banks at the time of writing.

Bank	Minimum Balance	Monthly Fee
RBC	No minimum balance to waive the fee	$0 for the first year and then $11.95
TD Bank	$4000	$16.95
Scotia	$3000	$11.95
BMO	$6000	$17.95
CIBC	$4000	$16.95

There are quite a few low cost banks, the problem is that most are reasonably new and all a lot smaller.  Also they require you to have a bit of a credit history before they will give you anything. The reason why you want to deal with them is you can have free banking without keeping a minimum deposit. Tangerine has been around the longest as far as I know, it is now owned by Scotia Bank.  Unfortunately you won't be able to open a bank account there for at least 3 months after arriving, but that is exactly what I did.  I closed my TD account after 3 months and opened a Tangerine one.  There are other disadvantages though, for example Tangerine can't handle foreign currency.  The mortgage rate is slightly better at TD compared to Tangerine, but it was easier to get my mortgage at Tangerine than TD.

Do your research and we can show the banks that we are discerning and will choose a good bank with reasonable fees.  Another cheaper "Bank" is Simplii (owned by CIBC), also EQ Bank, Neo Financial and Koho are credit card providers with debit card accounts as an option.  I am guessing they will also require you to have your SIN number for 3 months before you can get an account with them.

Where to live when you immigrate to Canada

Here is a nice resource to see what city you want to live in when you arrive in Canada depending on what is important to you.

If you click here you get the overall 2018 ranking.  The ranking is formulated based on measurements of the city, such as growth of the city, affordability, the economy, and then these factors are given various weightings.

Of course, all of us will give the measurements a different weighting, so they have provided some different rankings for specific circumstances, such as families, retiring, best weather, etc.  The families ranking has lots of Quebec cities in it because childcare is very cheap in Quebec.

The ranking we will all be interested in is the New Immigrants Ranking. Having Oakville listed as number 1 has the benefit of living in quite a nice area just outside of Toronto.  It is known as quite a wealthy area with some lovely facilities and you have reasonably easy access to Toronto for work and play. It might not be for all, but it certainly has a lot going for it.  Some would prefer to live in the centre of Toronto, but that comes with a hefty price tag.

Let me know in the comments below which place you chose to live.  We personally chose to live in North York which I enjoy because the commute is much easier.  It is impossible to commute through Toronto to a job on the other side of Toronto, you will spend two to three hours on the road each day if you try to do that.  If you try to take Public Transport it will take even longer!