Can you find a job with one year experience in IT?

[coder_immigrant]

Hi,

I am graduating soon from a master's degree in Computer Science. I have also received an ITA and will soon apply.

I wanted to know if its possible to get a job with only one year experience?

What are your thoughts?

 

[coder_immigrant]

Anyone please, can you guys share some of your thoughts?

 

[Kumuluswolken]

In my opinion you will pretty sure find something eventually, but should be prepared for a period of desperation and unemployment once you arrive in Canada.

1) Having Canadian work experience is important to most employers. If you don't have any, your resume will most likely get overlooked a lot of times.
2) Don't expect to get full-time, permanent employment right away. It might happen if your skills and field of expertise is sought after, but you should be prepared having to go for internships, contractor or part-time jobs first to prove yourself
3) It can be really frustrating and emotionally as well as financially draining at the start when you're distributing your resume like hell, but rarely get any responses. Be prepared for that, emotionally and financially
4) It also of course depends on which city you want to settle in, Toronto and Vancouver have the most jobs, but are also the most expensive cities to live in

For my own situation: I moved to Toronto from Germany as a fresh graduate with a Master of Science in a Computational Linguistic field. Didn't have any valuable work experience, just some experience from student jobs. Took me 3 months to get an internship for a job in my field of studies. These 3 months were emotionally and financially draining since Toronto rent is really expensive. I was burning through a lot of my savings without knowing when I'd get a job. After the internship was done and I applied again for new jobs, I got more replies than the first time. But the offer I ended up taking was from a competitor company in Montreal where I now work full-time, permanent.

So to sum it up: I'm pretty sure eventually you will get a job, but be prepared for a very rough start.

 

[coder_immigrant]

Thanks a lot for an excellent write up. Also, what a coincidence that I am also from a related field, Natural Language Processing, so I think I could ask a little bit more information. I am interested in getting a job like an AI developer but I am not sure how is that in demand in Canada. So lately, I have decided to take up some web development by learning and creating some portfolio to show.

So you said, you got a real job after an internship, but did your portfolio or past work also matter? If yes, what was it.

Also, I am sure you have met/seen many immigrants with IT background, so how would you say, how long does it take on average for an immigrant with an IT masters? Which field is in more demand and/or does previous experience in one's own country matter.

In addition, I have seen your answer regarding getting an online Canadian certification before arrival as a first preparation. Which specific certification would you recommend?

Sorry, there are many questions I have asked, but I hope this can help others too.

TIA

 

[canuck78]

Thanks a lot for an excellent write up. Also, what a coincidence that I am also from a related field, Natural Language Processing, so I think I could ask a little bit more information. I am interested in getting a job like an AI developer but I am not sure how is that in demand in Canada. So lately, I have decided to take up some web development by learning and creating some portfolio to show.

So you said, you got a real job after an internship, but did your portfolio or past work also matter? If yes, what was it.

Also, I am sure you have met/seen many immigrants with IT background, so how would you say, how long does it take on average for an immigrant with an IT masters? Which field is in more demand and/or does previous experience in one's own country matter.

In addition, I have seen your answer regarding getting an online Canadian certification before arrival as a first preparation. Which specific certification would you recommend?

Sorry, there are many questions I have asked, but I hope this can help others too.

TIA

Would think your AI skills would be more in demand than anything. Would be looking at jobs in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto and Kitchener-Waterloo. Getting your first job as an immigrant or relatively new graduate is always a bit challenging. You may need to prove that you have the skills necessary unless you graduated from a well known school in the IT community. You may need to take a more junior level job that you expected to get some a Canadian experience. Would consider getting into a company where there is room for growth once you prove yourself.

 

[Kumuluswolken]

I agree with canuck78,
In my opinion AI/Machine Learning/Data Science Developers are very much in demand. If your skills are good you might even have good chances without previous experience. A couple of times I was invited to take pre-interview coding tests where you have to solve a task with a time limit before getting an interview. I always struggled with these kind of test set ups, because I can't handle time pressure well and blank. But if you know your stuff and can handle it that increases your chances.

My previous work definitely mattered during the interview processes. During the interviews I got questions about what project was the most insightful during my studies, what I learned and what commands I used. So employers can definitely be interested in talking about projects you did during your studies. The main project I liked to talk about was my master's thesis where I used different data science approaches on a corpus of scientific papers (linear regression, topic modeling and author network analysis).

For the positions I was hired for (the internship and the permanent position) it was key that I was a German native speaker, because for both I was and am working on German language data. So if you have native or near native proficiency in a language other than English and that language happens to be in demand that it also a big plus for you.

I can't really say anything about a general time frame from immigrant IT graduates to find a job. I think that depends on many factors (like which country you're from, is your degree comparable to Canadian education, what are your specific skill sets, etc.), but in general I think in the IT field the chances for getting a job fast without previous experience are way better than in other fields when you can show your skills.

I also don't have specific recommendations for certifications you could do before you arrive. There are tons of free certificates online you can choose from. I also built a Github page for myself where I put my master's thesis and other projects on. Because when you're applying, employers often have a field where you can put a link to your portfolio/Github. Not sure how many are actually looking at it, but if you can show something off, do so.
A very good certification I can recommend when you happen to be in Toronto is the ADaPT certificate from Ryerson University. That is not only good for learning new skills for the job market, but they also provide workshops for resume writing or training for interviews. So for newcomers that is an excellent way to get a feeling for the Canadian job search culture. If you graduated within the last 3 years you can apply for this program.

 

[DEEPCUR]

If your skill set is Java development or front end development, you can find job lot faster than being in any other technology. Your best option is to focus on that.

It is very hard to get employed with AI/Machine Learning developer skills fast. Although there is a perceived boom, in reality core programming is foundation of all of that. Also, it will be very hard to get hired as a data scientist with self learning.

 

[canuck78]

In general with good IT skills you can find a job in Canada relatively easily. Whether it makes sense to immigrate to Canada is a different story. We have seen examples of people from places like India being offered the same salaries with significantly lower cost of living and taxes.

 

[navinball]

In general with good IT skills you can find a job in Canada relatively easily. Whether it makes sense to immigrate to Canada is a different story. We have seen examples of people from places like India being offered the same salaries with significantly lower cost of living and taxes.

You've got to be kidding me. Same salary? Even a meagre 70k pa is more than double the senior IT guys in india make.

 

[canuck78]

You've got to be kidding me. Same salary? Even a meagre 70k pa is more than double the senior IT guys in india make.

No there have been comparable salaries for more senior level IT people in the big tech companies like google, Facebook, etc. Now setting up large campuses in India.

 

[coder_immigrant]

Thanks for your replies, guys.

I have a question regarding job interviews: what does the technical part include?
Does it include whiteboard? And if so do they ask for algorithmic coding or do they ask for a system design?
How about knowledge of frameworks (like Spring, Hibernate for Java) how do they gauge your level of knowledge in these?