No love for you? Be resilient to find a job and immigrate to Canada
At the risk of sounding overtly obvious, finding a job and immigrating to Canada is a hard thing to do. Not because there are a small number of immigration jobs available to international candidates. In fact, we know that many thousands of economic immigrants enter into Canada each year.
In fact, the most difficult component of starting a new life in Canada is getting over the psychological hurdles that create tension, frustration and hesitation at the very initial stages of the process. But for those who will stop at nothing to find a job and immigrate to Canada, wrapping your head around these initial barriers is not as difficult as you think.
Just as there is a fine line for advice between patronizing and reality checking, many international candidates walk the line between skepticism and awareness. Each year, there are millions of people who want to come to Canada. Unfortunately, not everyone gets a chance to start a new life here. However, people from all walks of life and in all careers make it into the country. There are foreign bakers, engineers, professors, tradespersons, nurses, nannies, doctors, farm workers and people from hundreds of other professions finding jobs and immigrating to Canada every year.
Why do some people make it while others do not? Of course, experience and skills are a large part of the equation. But more importantly, attitude plays an extremely large part of the equation as well. Don’t get us wrong. There is good reason to be frustrated if you have invested time, effort and money but have not yet found a job to immigrate to Canada.
However, those who persevere seem to realize that certain realities inherent in the process of finding a job and immigrating to Canada are here to stay, and that if you can simply wrap your head around these psychological hurdles, you will be an important step closer to finding success in the process. One such hurdle is the lack of appreciation and acknowledgment Canadian employers have towards international candidates.
No Love For You
There is absolutely no doubt that Canada needs and continues to require economic immigrants. Relatively speaking, Canada has a small and aging population as well as a shrinking labour force that simply cannot support future growth. However, just because Canada needs international workers does not mean that employers will embrace international candidates with open arms. In fact, given the political realities the opposite is quite true. Employers will likely go out of their way to not mention or even deny that a job posting is open to international candidates.
That is why trying to pick out from the hundreds of thousands of existing job openings which positions are available to international candidates is an extremely difficult task. Sometimes employers will use code words to imply that international candidates should apply, but most of the time employers will say nothing.
It is easy to see why this lack of acknowledgement would negatively affect an international candidate both personally and logistically. Some international candidates spend hours, days and months, trying to find that one employer with a job posting that says ‘international candidate please apply’. The reality is that you are rarely going to find this type of overt invitation to apply and certainly no employer posting is going to embrace international candidates with open arms.
Eventually frustration turns to skepticism and then into hesitation. International candidates will recognize when they have reached this point as they begin to make comments such as ‘the employer will never do this’ or ‘no employer will ever look at that’. Well, how do you know? How can you tell whether an employer that you claim will never hire an international candidate has not already quietly hired numerous international candidates over the recent few months?
For the Canadian employer, hiring international candidates is usually an exercise in secrecy and discretion. No employer is going to show you love or acknowledge your importance. But make no mistake, thousands of employers need and want you work and live in Canada. It is very human to need validation and approval in order to apply maximum effort towards anything in life. Love, friendship, and career are no exception. However, the first step in finding a job and immigration to Canada is to understand that in this one case, you will quickly need to overcome the psychological need for acceptance.