Newcomer Employment Tips

If you aren’t already employed in Canada for more than 10 years, don’t get employed in Canada at all.

Go on and scratch your head at the above weird paradoxical tip, but you won’t get a more sincere tip than that from anyone. Here are the reasons why.

Top Three Reasons for All Seasons

1. Credentials – I showed you mine, now show me yours

You see, there is no such thing here as what prima donnas like you describe as “professional credentials”. Your 10 years of experience as a top-notch engineer in some unpronounceable third-world city means you are as good as a newly hired carpet cleaner. No body will take you seriously. You will try to explain that you have prior experience with your particular branch of engineering but it simply does not matter here, because laws of physics and nature in general are quite different in Canada and all your prior education and knowledge has been to waste. Same goes for doctors and nurses and other such professions. In Canada, your medical education is irrelevant because here we have humans, whose anatomy is quite different than Romulans or Vulcans or Klingons that you’ve been accustomed to ‘treating.’

2. Career – Peak Performance

You will notice that the guy who sits opposite to you is 59 years old and has been with the company for 30 years and is a high school drop out. And he’s the newest employee in your department! In fact, his annual vacations have grown, multiplied and accumulated to a point where he has just spread them across the entire year and now only comes to work two days a week because he says how else can he use them up ? If this does not make you realize you’re on a different planet, consider the fact that he’s got a vacation house in Florida, a summer cottage in Muskoka Bay and drives everyday from Oakville in his GMC Truck where he’s got a ‘nice little house’ in whose basement he’s got ‘really nice tenants’ from your ‘part of the world’.

3. Networking – It’s a Team Sport

You don’t know jack about Hockey, American Football or Baseball. Don’t expect to get into any co-worker groups during lunch or breaks where wagers are discussed and ‘inside jokes’ are passed around. You’ll just end up eating your sandwich at your desk, reading the free “Metro” newspaper that you picked up by the Subway station.

I’ll add more reasons to this post… for now I’m just too tired and must pack my sandwich for tomorrow.