How To Find a Job in Metropolitan Cities Like Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, etc.

After several years of working with immigrants, we’ve seen that many struggle with finding a job in a busy city such as Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, etc. This is not rocket science and that is why we’ve crafted this post to provide you with step-by-step strategies to land your next role even with the heavy competition.

We understand that you may want to move to a city for a number of reasons but then fear that you may find it difficult to land a job since the cost of living and the competition in the city is tough.

Job hunting in a metropolitan city can feel very competitive since a number of individuals are all scouting for a similar role. Without beating around the bush, let’s jump into how you can land your next role in your favorite metropolitan city.

1. Make sure you’re eligible to work in Canada

Toronto is historically friendly to immigrants, and getting a visa is pretty straight forward since the government is open about the steps to take. In general, there are two options for working in Canada.

a. Become an international student where you’ll be eligible to work part-time. You can learn more about how to work and study in Canada.

b. Express Entry is an option to immigrate as a skilled worker.

Knowing your eligibility upfront can save you time on your job search in case you don’t qualify.

2. Change your mindset as this is a new environment 

What we notice from many immigrants is that they choose to take their mindset from back home and stick to it forgetting that they are in a foreign land and things are different. Many people choose to do a certain role without taking what is in demand into consideration.

For instance, if you were a successful Human Resources practitioner in your home country when moving to Canada, you need to confirm if this career path will be lucrative here in Canada.

From speaking with immigrants, people feel that they can only do once thing in life which isn’t the truth. As someone who decided to leave your home country, this means you have some level of tolerance and should be open to change. Be dynamic.

Be open to changing your career path if that’s what will move you in the right direction. You could actually apply skills from your previous experience to find a new role.

3. Search for a role that is in high demand 

Case Scenario:

Jane has lived in India for all of her life and in 3 months will be relocating to Canada to start her new life. Jane has been practicing Human Resources ‘HR’ and has specifically been a generalist. Jane is tasked with landing a job in Toronto 4 weeks after she lands.

Solution:

a. Research the available careers in the field of human resources. A quick search on Google for ‘Human Resources job roles‘ should give you some clues.

b. While doing this Google search, the roles you see might seem broad and somewhat theoretical. However, as we move ahead, you’ll see how to make sense of it.

Example roles in HR that come up from the top page are: Recruitment, Total Rewards, Compensation and Benefits, Employee and Labour Relations, Training and Development, Recruiter.

See the screenshot below. We’ve highlighted the key search words we used on Google and you can see that the top post already shows us a number of roles in HR.

c. Jane should then list out all of the roles in human resources that she’s identified and do a quick search in Job boards for all of these roles.

d. Some job boards that you can use are LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Indeed, Workopolis, Zinny Factor Board, Career Builder, Monster, etc. A quick search on Google: ‘Job Boards in Canada‘ should give you some starting point.

We’ve used a job board in the screenshot below, you’ll notice that we are targeting HR roles in Toronto specifically for Employee and Labour Relations.

The number of jobs for this role is 16. This is not a good sign for this job function as the number of openings is really low. You’ll need to do the same for every other job function for every other role in HR.

In the next screenshot below, we can see that for the role of a Recruiter there are 184 available positions on the job board! This is an indicator that the Recruitment role is in high demand in Toronto compared to Employee and Labour Relations.

Jane can go ahead to tailor her resume for a Recruiter role because she’ll have a higher chance to land a role in this area of demand. Do a variation of IT Recruiter, Technical Recruiter and there will be more job openings since companies have different variations of job titles.

e. Now that you have an idea of how to do the first search for your job, it’s time for you to try it out yourself. You don’t have to be applying for an HR role, but follow these simple tips to your chosen industry and see what jobs are in high demand in your interested career so that you can begin to tailor your resume to it.

Toronto is Canada’s financial center, and as such, the city has plenty of jobs in the financial sector. Other big industries in the city include media, tech, and tourism, with the city boasting a growing startup scene.

Outside of the core industries, there’s still a growing industry out there, but these step-by-step approaches will help you get in the right direction.

Homework

Follow the steps provided above to find a role in high demand in your preferable metropolitan city.

Our goal is to give you a self serve approach to consulting in order to make your Canadian career goals a long term success. After completing this short assignment, you can search back here on ZF Prime for your next information on working with a recruitment agency if you want to go that route, networking, mentorship, building your resume, and all that juicy stuff!

We are here for you! Have any questions? Use the chatbox to drop us a message and someone will be in touch with you shortly. Leave a comment below if you enjoyed reading this article or send us an email.

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