Category: Jobs in Canada

Before starting to search for a job in Canada, you must analyze your core skills, interest areas, education, and specialization, encompassed with your transferable skills that are tailored for the industry and function. It is essential to align employer requirements with your skills and aspirations to secure a job in Canada.

Steps on how to find a job in Canada?

1. Identify Industry & Business Function to search for a job in Canada
2. Conduct Industry and Business function Research 
3. Search and identify job roles and job profiles in Canada of your interest
4. Identify skill requirements for the designated job roles and job profiles
5. Identify and categorize your skills 
6. Identify your transferable skills, which aligns with job role requirement
7. Identify and follow organizations on LinkedIn 
8. Reach out to employees and potential hiring managers on LinkedIn 
9. Build a network and professional relationships 
10. Found a job opening! Leverage your network and prepare a job application

1. Identify Industry & Business Function to search for a job in Canada

Identify the top 3 Industries along with primary and secondary business functions for a job search in Canada.

To build a Connected Career Plan, you to take into account various versions of planning. You must identify not only one industry of interest but potentially three industries, as a way to increase the likelihood of landing on a job offer. Similarly, it is critical to identify more than one function of interest to search for a job in Canada. Whether you have the skills, experience, and educational background for the selected industry or business function is something to explore and think forward to as a next step.

Below is a non-comprehensive list of critical Industries and Business Functions one might be interested in exploring when you are looking for a job in Canada. This list is applicable if you are an experienced professional or an MBA candidate looking for a job post-graduation.

2. Conduct Industry and Business function Research to search for a job in Canada

For the top 3 identified Industries and business functions, conduct research to understand current market trends and future opportunities for a career transformation.

To search for a job in Canada, once you have converged to a few Industries and functions of your choice, it’s time to identify and analyze the opportunities in the organizations, within each industry you might be interested in working. Explore the industry you have chosen and identify the sub-industries to search for a job in Canada. Conduct research and find out the top 10 companies within the sector of your interest. For example, let’s say a potential candidate who is planning to move and build a career in Canada is an IT Engineer and he/she has worked to develop software for several companies within many industries. Based on the previous experience, the candidate can select industries such as technology, telecom and healthcare and IT as a function to search for a job in Canada.

The advantage of keeping your options open during the early stage of job search in Canada is that it helps you to gain insights and information about the overall Canadian job market along with insights on the professional and working culture of Canada. There is indeed more effort required when you keep options open, as one has to prepare differently for every industry and gain information and knowledge of the industry in a reasonably short period, to prepare for interviews. The intent is to eliminate all other choices at a later stage and select only one sector and function as an initial career plan, Plan A, to search for a job in Canada. As with any other planning, in connected career planning, there are versions to searching for a job in Canada.

Plan B to search for a job in Canada will comprise the second industry of your choice, coupled with your primary or secondary choice of business function. In case, if the job search efforts in Canada are not giving expected positive results, more often than not changing a few variables of how one is conducting a job search, a positive attitude, and a new perspective helps to get a job. If someone is looking for career transformation, the person can secure a job in another Industry by repositioning one’s professional profile and by identifying, analyzing and highlighting transferable skills, even if the individual has been working in one industry for many years. There is the effort required to read, understand, gain insight and knowledge about the new or other sectors and to search for a job in Canada. This action is “industry research for career expansion and transformation.”

3. Identify job roles and job profiles of your interest to search for a job in Canada

Use LinkedIn job search to explore roles within the selected Industry and functions. Narrow down to 5 roles per Industry per business function. Given, you have chosen 3 industries, and 2 business functions, you should have narrowed down to 30 roles.

Once you have narrowed it down to the potential industry and business functions you are interested in, the next step is to explore and identify roles within all those combinations of industries and business functions, irrespective of the company. LinkedIn job search in Canada is a great way to search and identify job roles associated with a selected industry and business function. Take notes of the job description for various job roles you want to succeed in to search for a job in Canada.

These roles are irrespective of the company, as the intent of this career transformation action is not to apply for those job roles; instead, explore and understand opportunities in various sectors.

The research is to gain insights on various hard and soft skills required for a particular role to search for a job in Canada. While conducting this research, you might feel that you might not have the relevant skills or educational background to fulfill the job requirements. However, you should keep those thoughts aside during the research, as this concern will address the transferable skill concept in upcoming steps. During a career transformation journey, there will be a lot of unknowns and uncertainties and dealing with those is crucial for success and to search for a job in Canada.

4. Identify skill requirements for the identified job roles and job profiles to search for a job in Canada

For all the identified 30 potential job roles, conduct research to identify the technical, leadership, management and interpersonal skill requirements and make a list of all the skills.

While conducting your research on job roles, through LinkedIn Job Search or other job search forums for the identified industry and business functions, start to identify skills requirements for those roles and categorize them in 4 categories to search for a job in Canada.

• Technical Skills
• Leadership Skills
• Management Skills and
• Interpersonal Skill

You will soon start noticing that certain skills are a common requirement for several job roles, which you might be interested in pursuing to search for a job in Canada. Take special note of those skills. Additionally, there might be specific technical skills you might not have heard of and not relevant to you. Don’t ignore them. Instead, take note of those skills, and you will find out that many of those technical skill requirements can be met with training and certification courses to search for a job in Canada. It will help you to expand your job search horizon, thus giving you a better chance of landing on a job and transforming your career to new heights.

Below is the list of examples of identified skills by exploring Job roles across many industries and business functions. Technical skills are not included in the list as they vary with industry, business function and job roles. Several skills might overlap and reoccur in more than one category!

5. Identify and categorize your skills to search for a job in Canada

Once you have identified and categorized the skill requirements, the next step is to critically identify and categorize your skills based on your previous experience and education.

It is also possible to start with the step of identifying your skills, i.e., Identify your skills followed by job role identification and skill requirements to find a sweet spot to build your career successfully

Think and list all the projects you have undertaken in your current or previous job roles, including technical, non-technical, continuous improvement and social projects to search for a job in Canada. Add the skills you developed throughout your education as well to the list and start to identify the skills you have developed over time in your profession. Make use of the skill requirement list you build in the previous steps to complement your list of skills to search for a job in Canada. It’s important to categorize your skills and align them with the skill requirement list. For all the projects you did, index and categorize the skills you developed for individual projects (exclusively) and then when you have a comprehensive list of all the skills, start to eliminate the duplication to get your skill list with unique attributes. This will help you in your search for a job in Canada

Make sure to keep the skill list per role active as it will be in use later to build stories to demonstrate those skills required in the job interview. Add a one-line description to each skill you have you get a better insight on the same. Also, it is vital to categorize your technical skills based on your professional experience to search for a job in Canada. May it be analytical, technological, economic, commercial, financial, operational or others. Think of all the tools you have or can use, analysis you have performed and have experience in and initiatives you can contribute to or lead. Make a list of all the training you have done at any point in time in your professional journey and derive technical and non-technical skills from the same. Think and list your skills, taking into consideration all these aspects to search for a job in Canada.

6. Identify your transferable skills, which aligns with job role requirement to search for a job in Canada

Align your identified skills with the skills required for all the 30 identified job roles in all the four categories of skills namely technical, leadership, management and interpersonal skills

An essential step of career transformation is aligning job role skill requirements with your skills. More of than not, those skills are not only technical, and almost always coupled with non-technical skills. Hiring managers in Canada give high-value interpersonal skills and cultural fit. If you have completed all the steps above, you should know which skills are in requirement for five roles / Industry / Business function (30 roles) to search for a job in Canada. What expertise you have in all the four categories of skills, namely technical, leadership, management, and interpersonal skills, are. With this insight, knowledge and information in hand, you will be in a position to choose and select the career path you want and transform your career. Roles in which your skills align with the requirement are the sweet spots you should focus on moving forward to search for a job in Canada.

You will find that there are several job roles where your skills are not in full alignment with the requirements. Make a list of skills that you are deficient of, and later you can analyze if it is possible to acquire those skills (mostly technical) through certification courses or online courses. You might not have experience of the same. However, you will gain enough knowledge to talk about the subject during an interview.

Focus on job roles, where your skills are more or less aligned to mature. You might observe that you have now narrowed down potential job roles from 30 (5 job roles each, for three industries and two business functions) to a few. Try not to limit the number of job roles to less than 10. Those are the roles you will be focusing on to search for jobs in Canada. The recommendation is to prioritize those roles based on how well the skills are in alignment with the job role requirement.

By completing this step, you have reached a milestone, where you have identified the job roles you will be applying to build a successful career in Canada. Which companies to apply, how to do so and how to excel in the interview are the next steps of your career transformation journey.

7. Identify and follow organizations on LinkedIn to search for a job in Canada

Identify 30 organizations within your three selected industries (10 companies/industry) and explore job roles and postings. Follow the chosen organizations on LinkedIn.

Select a minimum of 10 organizations you are interested in working for within each industry. You should select a minimum of 30 companies to follow with enough variability to increase the likelihood of a job offer. Try to choose organizations using a defined set of criteria that matter to you the most. Not every organization and its culture is a good fit for you and vice-versa. You need to analyze what’s essential for you when you are choosing a particular organization to work for and evaluate your growth opportunities at the same time. The recommendation to search for a job in Canada is that you select even more than ten organizations as with time, you would filter organizations as you learn more about the organization’s requirements, offerings, alignment and culture.

Once you have identified the companies, make sure to follow them on LinkedIn and continue to read their posts to learn more about the organization and job opportunities. You must analyze the organization you want to work for to search for a job in Canada as this career transformation journey is about you. You need to choose an organization in a similar way organization selects you. The only difference is that you don’t take an interview with the hiring manager; instead, you screen organizations based on the company’s outlook.

Below is the list of criteria (non-exhaustive) you can use to screen organizations. The advice is to keep your spectrum of options wide to choose from various options. You can include more criteria as per your professional vision and aspirations.

• Location /Commute /Relocation
• Size (global Fortune 500 company, small business)
• History (start-up, established, either OK)
• Financial performance
• Company name recognition (household brand name, start-up)
• Compensation (salary $, bonus)
• Opportunity for growth (advancement, training)
• Lifestyle (travel, celebrations, socials)
• Flexibility (able to work from home)
• Job structure (autonomy, structure)
• Culture and colleagues
• Others

8. Reach out to employees and potential hiring managers on LinkedIn to search for a job in Canada

Start building your connections in all the identified 30 organizations by reaching out to potential hiring managers and employees with similar job roles.

Career Transformation status enabled by Connected Career Planning
By now, you have identified three industries, two business functions, 30 job roles (5 roles / Business function / Industry), and 30 organizations (10 organizations / Industry). These are the dimensions of identified opportunities for your career transformation journey and to get a job in Canada!

Make sure that your LinkedIn profile is world-class (best of the best). There are more ways of networking apart from reaching out on LinkedIn. Keep exploring ‘Calont’ for more details.

Start expanding your professional network (or start building your professional you have recently relocated to Canada) by reaching out to employees and potential hiring managers to connect on LinkedIn. You can use the LinkedIn filter to identify employees and managers who might be able to help you secure a job. However, it is essential not to ask for a job directly instead of having a conversation about a professional journey. Start by searching the organization (one at a time, and repeat for all 30 organizations) and viewing its current employee list. Based on your research, you know the job profile/role you are interested in, and it’s time to bring that to use. Use it as a filter to identify employees with similar job roles.

Try to navigate through conversation in such a way that you get an idea of the organization department that job role might fall into and identify leaders and managers of that department. Send an invite to all the relevant employees you feel are in a similar professional path as you.

It is recommended never to send an invite without a personalized message (Networking 101). With time, you would notice that many of the invitations will be accepted (and many of the initiations will not get a response). It is the very first step in building a professional network in Canada. Reach out!

Below is a template that you can use to send an invitation on LinkedIn. It is highly advised to add a personal message based on their profile review in the message.

9. Build a network and professional relationships to search for a job in Canada

Be curious about people, their interests and professional journey and keep in touch with your new connections on LinkedIn using various networking strategies. Be authentic, selfless and genuinely interested in others and their journey.

Building professional relationships takes time! There are no shortcuts. It’s difficult to gain trust without knowing each other well. The association has to be authentic and selfless. Hence, it is prudent to invest time to connect and build a relationship. Canada is a multicultural country, and people from around the globe immigrate to Canada, and this is one key reason why building trust is essential to get hired.

Canada is a reference-based market, and the hiring manager would often look for some kind of connection or recommendation to increase the trust level. However, it is not impossible to get a job without a reference.

Once your LinkedIn invitation is accepted, follow-up with a message to thank them for taking your request and send an invite for a phone call. The template below is only a draft and tailor it for the person you are writing. You will get a better response if you write personalized and specific messages to people with a clear set of plans in terms of what you are looking out for, from the meeting. Is it also advised to think about how this meeting might benefit the other person to search for a job in Canada? The hiring manager’s objective is also to get the best candidate for their organization, and if your value proposition is right, your meeting can help you build an excellent network.

Please don’t request for a face to face coffee meeting as it is a high risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. Request for a phone call or a zoom/skype calls instead. You will also be able to demonstrate that you can adapt to the need of the hour!

If the other person has accepted your LinkedIn request, however, have not responded to your second message to connect on a phone call, wait for at least two weeks before sending another message. Below is a template of the second message you can send to follow-up.

How many LinkedIn invitations should you send?
Try to spread the timing of your LinkedIn invitation. As mentioned earlier, networking and building professional relationships takes time. Let’s assume that you have identified 50 connections per organization, and you have to explore 30 such organizations, you have 1500 requests to send and follow-up. Consider sending not more than 30 – 50 LinkedIn connection requests per week; else, it can get overwhelming.
Assuming ~20% of people accept your request and ~5% of them agree for a coffee chat, within a few weeks, you will have several phone calls in place to build and grow your network.

Strategy on who to connect with on LinkedIn

Consider scheduling the initial phone calls with employees with a few years of experience first, followed by management and hiring manager. If you are successful to directly schedule a phone call with a person in higher management (or a hiring manager), it great! However, there is a threat that you might come as naive, and you may miss the opportunity, as you will not have enough relevant information to talk. If you don’t speak on pertinent topics of which the other person is interested in, there is a high likelihood that it will convert into a missed opportunity. Talking to employees during the early stages of your job search gives you time and space to explore the job role and profile further, understand various on-going projects and interest areas of the team, department and organization.

It will prepare you to be relevant on the phone call and to have a productive mutual conversation with the higher management. Remember, to ask for another contact to connect within the same department at the same level or a level-up. You will know if the meeting was successful if the person refers you further.

The most difficult part of networking is sustaining communication with the person you connected with once.

Be very strategic to ask questions during the first phone call such that you get an idea of the interest of the other person. It may be a particular subject of interest, for example. You can then send relevant articles, mentioning – Hey, I found this article, and I thought it would be an exciting read for you! It will help to keep the connection alive. Don’t worry, if you don’t get a reply. Continue on the effort, while maintaining at least two weeks of time difference before sending a message if you are not getting a response. The simple assumption is people are busy, and you might not be their priority. There are several other ways of sustaining communication and building a network. Think of what else you can do to initiate a conversation.

The professional world still revolves around email, and if you can get the professional email of the person you are trying to build a connection with, you are in the right direction. The time is right when there is an opportunity, and you have identified the hiring manager or someone who knows the hiring manager. All it will take is forwarding your resume via email to get into the interview, and that’s when having access to the professional email of your connection is worthwhile. You can always ask for professional email and permission to communicate with them in their email at the end of your phone call.

Again, make sure to ask for their professional e-mail and other references you can connect with and if the person on the other side will be willing to connect them to you.

Don’t forget to wish everyone in your Canadian network best wishes during festivals and occasions. A straightforward e-mail or LinkedIn message suffices the need. See the example below.

How to do networking in Canada to get a job?

The process of networking in Canada to get a job and to build professional relationships is evolving during the COVID period. Building and maintaining professional relationships have become even more critical. With the changing business dynamics, global economics and COVID impact on businesses, hiring managers are in the lookout for diverse and skilled resources that brings a unique value proposition on the table.

Building professional relationships by networking in Canada to get a job is an essential aspect for anyone moving to Canada. Building professional relationships help individuals to grow with the help of exchange of knowledge and information, and by learning about new opportunities. There is also an aspect where building professional relationships by networking in Canada can be leveraged to secure a job in Canada.

One of the processes to build professional relationships in Canada is through networking. Meeting a professional by reaching out through LinkedIn or a reference, connecting and exploring synergy has been in existence for many years now. The effect of the COVID pandemic on how people network in Canada to build professional relationships is evident. Coffee-chats is one of the ways to meet new professionals to explore how they can help each other in their professional journey.

The need of this hour is to continue networking and building a professional relationship, however, the channel may not be coffee-chats, but virtual coffee-chats on channels such as WhatsApp, Zoom or Skype

Building professional relationships and Canada is an essential aspect of career development. To secure a job in Canada, you can start reaching out to professionals in the organizations you are interested in applying to build a network in Canada. It is vital to understand that being authentic helps in building trust. An excellent attribute of professionalism is to genuinely be interested in the professional journeys of the people with who you are looking out to create a professional relationship. By being genuinely curious to know more about the other person and how their professional journey evolved will help to gain trust. A few topics of conversation could be talking about the skills the other professional has acquired and the impact they have made on the business. The intent of the first few meetings should be to explore common interests and what excites them in the professional world. Only by knowing the person’s likings and future aspirations, one can have a meaningful and productive discussion. Networking in Canada to get a job is considered the best way to secure a job.

It is not uncommon to feel a sense of awkwardness if the person directly talks about securing a job in the first few coffee meetings. One may have this as an end objective; however, the focus is to build a professional relationship by exploring a common interest, while being authentic and not to get a job. Your professional relationships are your network, who can help you to secure a job only if they can help.

For example, if you happen to get an opportunity to have a virtual coffee chat with a senior employee or a hiring manager of the company, then there is a high probability for the meeting to convert into an interview opportunity, only if your value proposition is in alignment with hirings managers’ requirements.

The objective of both the individual, in this case, is different. The aim of the senior employee or the hiring manager is to get the best talent for the job role. The candidate’s skills and cultural fit should be in alignment with the requirements. At the same time, your objective is to explore the opportunity in such a way that your skills and job aspirations are in alignment with the job requirements.

If your value proposition for the job role is in alignment with the job requirement, and you have an excellent cultural fit with that of the organization’s, then, it is highly likely that you might get a call for a formal interview. Hence, the objective of the coffee meetings should be to explore and understand the opportunities and, at the same time, analyze if your skill and value proposition is in alignment with the requirements. If so, there is a high likelihood for you to secure that job.

Please don’t request for a face to face coffee meeting as it is a high risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. Request for a phone call or a zoom/skype calls instead. You will also be able to demonstrate that you can adapt to the need of the hour!

Steps on networking in Canada to get a job during the COVID period?

1. Select professionals you would like to connect based on your industry, business function and job role.
2. Reach out to those professionals through LinkedIn, while introducing yourself in brief.
3. Once your invitation is accepted, request to connect over a phone call or video call.
4. In parallel, research the person you are connecting with and try to find common interest areas.
5. Prepare a set of questions you would ask and make sure that the discussion topics are about the other person and not about you.
6. Keep the conversation like a discussion and try not to have a one-way conversation to get a job in Canada.
7. Ask for a follow-up reference at the end of the meeting and analyze if there is a scope of the next meeting. If so, mention that you will be looking forward to schedule another meeting.
8. Repeat the process with other professionals.
9. Keep exchanging articles are messages related to other relevant topics (with time gap) to maintain the relationship.
10. Explore how you can help the other person or try to find a common forum where you both can meet again!

Considerations on networking in Canada to get a job during and post-COVID period

COVID-19 pandemic has changed how the world used to build networks to develop professional relationships.

There is a lot of consideration one has to take into account for networking with professionals—no more face-to-face coffee chat invitation. Instead, replace your request to connect over the phone call or a virtual video call.

This action will not only help you to demonstrate that you can adapt to the changing situations and scenarios but also assist other people to respond without feeling the threat of COVID-19 pandemic.

You need to have your value propositions polished. With so many webinars, phone calls and video calls, the professionals are getting busier. People who want to help others in their career journey are also looking for a great and relevant value proposition from them. If you can position yourself and make yourself relevant quickly, then it will help the professional on the other side to help you.

During the call, keep your energy level very high. The energy with which you talk face to face may not be appropriate for a video call. You need to show even a higher level of energy while being relevant to stand out from the crowd. It’s time that digital networking is adopted by every job seeker, and by professionals who want to build and maintain professional relationships.

10. Found a job opening! Leverage your network and prepare a job application

Get all your networking efforts to play and reach out to your professional network and connections, highlighting the opportunity you are interested to pursue. It’s time to start drafting your job application for the identified job opening!

You found a job opening that is right up your alley (aligned on the industry, business function, job role, skills and professional aspirations), and you want to secure this job opportunity. You also see that there are LinkedIn connections in the same company, with whom you have connected several times previously and have a professional relationship.

It’s time to reach out to your connection to ask for a favour! The advice is to reach out to your contact before submitting your application online as the person can help to forward your resume directly to the hiring manager. Once the application form is in the company system, the likelihood of how much your connection can help decreases. It’s best if you can talk on the phone to the person about the favour you are seeking and send your resume to his/her professional email (as it’s easy for the other person to forward it to the hiring manager). Follow your connection steer and start preparing your job application. Note that while doing all these activities, you should have the best in a class resume and cover letter made.

Apply for the job and add your connection/reference name in the application and the cover letter. Once your reference talks about you to be considered for the interview, to the hiring manager, hopefully, in a few days, you will get a response, inviting you to the job interview!