Canadian Jobs For International Students

Preface

The Thompson Rivers University’s independent student newspaper, The Omega, issued an article about barriers that international students are dealing with while looking for a job in Canada. Author of the article and a Roving Editor of The Omega, Karla Karcioglu, looked into the reasons of why international students struggle to find a job. Her interviewees gave possible explanation by analyzing their experience of working with international students for several years and researching the problem.

What it takes To Get The Job

The full article could be reached at http://truomega.ca/2013/11/12/university-portal-immigration/. Here are seven citations from the article to catch readers’ attention and maybe raise their interest to go through the whole work.

• Many international students who come to TRU already have some form of post-secondary education and many have degrees, but Bepple [Nancy Bepple, Kamloops city councillor and member of the career education department] said they discredit their previous education and value a Canadian education more. The same goes for prior work experience.
• Bepple said that people in Canada rely heavily on personal and professional networks to gain employment, but international students usually don’t have any networks when they arrive in Canada.
• Gibson [International student employment coordinator Sarah Gibson] said many employers are hiring by referral, causing a “hidden job market” that consists of jobs that aren’t even posted to job boards. If international students don’t have connections in their industry they will miss out on jobs that aren’t posted.
• Gibson said most international students are successful at entering the job market because they are invested in their education, not only financially, but by leaving behind their country, their home and their family. This drives them to succeed. She said they are also more willing to relocate than many domestic students who are usually tied to the region or the province.
• “There’s so many things I have learned from them,” Krauza said [Wendy Krauza is a senior lecturer in the English as-a-second language (ESL) department at TRU]. “We can never assume that because their first language isn’t English that they don’t have a world of experience under their belt already.”
• [Dmitry Sorokin graduated from TRU’s post-baccalaureate accounting program in the spring of 2013] He said it is important to socialize with people and let them get to know who you are. If they like you they will probably be willing to help you with your job search.
• Sorokin said another struggle international students may face is the demographics of the job market, with only three per cent of the labour market being immigrants who have lived in Canada for less than five years, according to the Government of Canada. He said he thinks employers are more likely to choose Canadian-born citizens or well-established immigrants than to take a risk on a new immigrant.