My new life in Canada

Hello folks,

I haven't been here for a while. It's time to write and share something now.

I landed at Toronto as FSW at the end of 2010 but left two days later. I got an Ontario driver's license (temp) by exchanging with my US license and SIN when I was there. Eight weeks later I received my Maple Leaf card and the formal driver license. My friend who lives in Toroton mailed them to me as I was in my home country at that time.

My second landing was made at the end of March this year at Edmonton, AB. During the first week, I applied for the medical care from Alberta government and exchanged the Class 5 driver's license with my Ontario license. During the second week, I bought a monthly ETS pass for $86 something. Finally, I found it's not necessary to get a monthly pass if you are not a regular commuter. During the third week, I started looking for a job. But my job hunting was interrupted due to the US travel during my forth week after the landing.

Job hunting is exactly hard and needs lots of patience and confidence. My major is accounting and I was an auditor in accounting firms. I had four-years public accounting experience but didn't have in-house experience. Here, most regional accounting firms want to hire those who have local public accounting experience or have CA/CMA/CGA with at least three-years-post-designation experience, so I don't have opportunities with them. Many companies hire accountants and internal auditors, but they look at candidates who have 5 - 8 years experience. Many companies hire entry-level accountants, too, but they want them have no more than 2 years "local experience." Anyway, I suddenly found that it looks no way for me to get an accounting job, unless I go back to school and spend another a couple of years to become a CMA or CGA. As for CA, I don't know if I can get the license as I'm not sure if they count my international public accounting experience.

Alberta didn't totally shut the door to me. The active market brings me 11 interviews from April till recent. The interviewers are from the Big Four, university, and bank. The positions are external auditor, internal auditor, consultant, and financial analyst. Unfortunately, I screwed up in the seven interviews and was destroyed by seven times. Although all of my friends and relatives keep telling me that it's quite normal to fail to get a job in an interview, I become a little anxious but I never considered giving up or going back to my home country.

The nightmare of my job hunting ends up on this Monday when I got a phone call from one of "Big 4" about a job offer. Monday night, the 2nd offer was coming. And today I got another phone call for a new interview of a gov "Accountant" position.

I'm very happy that I'm still in the public accounting area and can continue my career path at Big 4. This is my first professional job in North America and I look forward to moving up in the near future.

I'm sure that many of newcomers or newcomers "to go" eagerly want to know the situation of the job market and life here. I would say it's very hard for a newcomer to get a job soon after your landing, but you will always have opportunities to get your favorite job(s) as long as you are positive and confident. For those who're from non-English speaking countries, don't panic. English is my second language, too. I couldn't speak fluently in my interviews, especially when I was nervous. One of interviewers even asked me how to overcome the communication problem, like if I miss-understand others or I was miss-understood.

Very soon I will leave Edmonton and relocate again. Edmonton is not very beautiful but cute and quiet. I feel lucky to select here as the beginning of my life, and select Canada to be my second home town.

By the way, it's really worthy to migrate to Canada.