hats off to on-hold. Thank you for sharing your story.
I am actually visiting now Canadian forums and see what is going on in Canadian job market.
Apparently, it's very similar to job US market.
I think over emphasis in this particular forum on "networking" could stem from the fact that a lot of people here are immigrants (or future immigrants) from certain countries, and as such are used to "networking" as the only means of getting a job (or anythign for that matter). But that is their individual projection, and does not necessarily apply to entire Canada (though, thay may think it does, since they have practical evidence of succeeding in job landing when utilizing a "network", and don't know of any other way around).
What, however, does apply to Canada (and we have similar situation in US) is that the job market currently is over saturated with qualified employees and HR's post ridiculous ads (such as requiring a Master's degree with 7+ years of experience for entry level position to sweep the floors at the local warehouse), and overwhelmening majority of apps get dismissed without a single review. Those which are lucky enough to be looked at are in fierce competition with hundreds of other qualifying and desperate job seekers. The result is you may send thousands of resumes out and never hear from anyone. In US you WILL hear from at least few, because the job market in US evidently is not as bad as it is now in Canada and because as on-hold pointed out it's more common for American workers to move accross the country and employers know it, so wider radius of acceptance, but other than those two factors the main culprit is simply lack of jobs. Economy is just doing very bad, to put it bluntly.
Btw, even though the decline in oil prices may hurt Alberta in a short run, I beleive in the long run everything will imporve if oil prices keep falling. If you study the post WWII historical data, you will find out that Western economies fell into depression , stagnated and suffered any time oil prices were up (and they were incredibly high lately). And just remember how well things were in Canada (I read and discover that just like in US, Canadian job market fell into sink hole beginning n 2008) when oil prices were lower than today. There were times, relatively long period of time, when oil was trading for $30 a barrell or less. If you look up the data and see what those years were, they were also times when Developed economies were booming (and Canada along with them, since it's part of Great 7).
Too unfortunate that these are circumstances beyond our control, we can't speed up economic recovery, we can't force anyone to hire us when there is such scarcity of jobs. And we are likely to lose our Residency due to the fact that we can't find decent jobs in Canada.
But thank you to everyone for your input, particularly on-hold and beahcman.
As to networking, there is nothing new to me about the concept. I was born and lived through my teenages in a country that was (and still is) incredibly "people skills" based, so I know too well what "networking" means'.
Unfortunately, even if you are not shy or introvert as me, you will still struggle with building this type of asset if you are a total stranger to Canada. Because, as any asset, it requires having some to aquire some. Think of it in economic terms, you need to have capital to make a capital, therefore you need to have a network or you need to be a networking asset yourself to begin with, so you can successfully trade it with someone else. What you do if you are "nothing" in terms of your networking asset value (which most of those suggested to "network" would be)?
How do you trade, how do you bargain, what do you offer to the other valuable contact if they can't get anything from you? it's just not realisitic, because network building is like any business, it is not based on some altruistic desire to extend hand to some stranger who needs help, it's a calculated concept of mutual trade where you give something in expectation of getting somethng (the only difference is that business is straighforward, there are no feigned pretendings, while in "networking" you often must be putting up a show , as if this was about "friendship" or "helping" when you know in fact that it isn't, it's just a business as usual but with a lot of pretending involved). Not very good position to hold if you have no leverage to use , and like other poster above said, in practice it generates some of the most awkward situations one can face.
In any event, thanks to everyone for your input! We will not give up looking until our RO time is expired, we will keep looking and every day we gain more knowledge we will try to improve as much as possible our job searching, but it may simply be a bad economic times that are outside of our control, and we may not succeed. And if so, at least in the end we will be able to say that we tried our best, rather than did nothing.
All the best to everyone.
