2015 Mechanical Engineer / Oil & gas job prospects in Canada

[bhushans]

Hi All,

I have read through this forum & I have also gone through the Canadavisa site.
The process is fairly becoming clear to me now.

If I could get further help on my concerns below, it will help a lot!

Here goes:

1. How good/bad is the job situation for a B.E. Mechanical Engineer (Mumbai University, India), with 8 years experience in Power & Oil & Gas industry (currently aiming at job in Proposal development/process engineer).

Experience summary (Oil & Gas + Energy)
Power plant commissioning & operation (3.5 years)
Steam Turbine Application Engineering (2 years)
& Proposal Development of Compression solutions (2 years & counting).

All the above experience has been in India.

From current search, I understand that most relevant jobs are at Calgary/Edmonton/Toronto.

Would my experience land me a job which considers the experience & lets me in at intermediate level?
Can I target something above Mechanical Engineer III/IV


With 8 years, I am not a newbie, but not yet above the intermediate level either.

I have read about people doing survival jobs, people being stuck in survival jobs, people doing survival jobs until they get fed up & leave back for home country!
Could you guys comment on that based on your experience there?

I believe I am good with soft-skills & I am fairly tuned to be a client facing guy.
I can sell. I can talk. I have good technical & techno-commercial experience to back it. Considerably fluent in English & I pick up languages quicker.

2. How stable is the job situation - as compared to India for my job profile.

In India, I consider the situation to be fairly stable for my profile.
Say 7/10
( 10 being the most stable - a job can be,
0 being absolutely unstable,
5 being average-stable job )

3. What should be the approach :

a. Get PR (FSW 2015) to Canada >Move to Canada > Search job

(seems bit too risky, how possible is this without losing much time(?))

b. Search & secure job in Canada > apply for PR (FSW) to Canada > Move to Canada (seems too optimistic but considerably safe! - how likely is this going to happen?)

I have searched through the forum, and put a strikethrough on this option, as I see it's almost impossible to do this.

c. Get PR (FSW 2015)>travel to Canada for 1-2-3 weeks to search & secure job> Back to India & then quit the current job & then move to
Canada

(this seems safe, but is this how it works? do you think, this is actually possible?)

d. Any other -better way of doing this?

Appreciate your inputs!

bhushan.

 

[rahulaanshi]

Dear All,

I am Mech engineer NOC 2132, applied for FSW 2014. Perhaps you all know that getting job in Canada is not so easy and I think it is better to start homework before we move to Canada so that atleast we could have job in pipeline OR we could have road map to follow--

Considering that, here I am trying to collect ideas about how to get job in our field --

I am starting from myself but I am also looking for your ideas/views, at the end these will be benefited to all of us --

1) Do networking - networking via friends, relatives, linkedin, professional bodies, calling job agents, go to university job fairs, attend seminars, find seminars online or via universities websites and go there to do marketing about yourself.

2) Register Government employment dept. and private companies.
3) Get yellow pages and find field related companies/offices where we think our resume could be sold - take an appointment to talk for few min
4) Attend seminars/meetings conducted by state license board

Guys put your more ideas..

Thanks,
Regards,

 

[justinline]

Getting P Eng certification would be good idea to start with. Alberta and Sasketchwan would be your good bet to find something oil & gas or minning. They have few big power and transmission companies as well like Enmax ,EPCOR, Capital, ATCO, Sask Power. I am sure other provinces have their share of power companies.

On the whole power and distribution is good stable industry to be in, oil and gas is going through rough patch here in Alberta seeing lot of layoffs.


Employers here do value Canadian experience, Education and Certification. Others might have had different experience, even in IT which is my field where skill sets are pretty much transferable whether India , US or Canada.........I felt this.

If you see some positions online, get a online Canadian number and local address to apply. Usually you wont get response if you say you are still out of the country. See what's the response, you can even take few initial interviews on the phone.

I do feel networking is over hyped. Every job market has its share of networking market, think from hiring managers perspective as well. If I have position to fill, sure I will intimate people I know, but more importantly I want to reach out to maximum number of eligible candidates. I will not only contact the local body shoppers but also put add online, which isn't that expensive these days. Even if you place add on your company website, it will end up on mastersearch engines like indeed or glassdoor.

As a new immigrant we won't have that many people to network with, online search and apply is your best bet. When you land here you can get in touch with Robert Half or Manpower other placement companies. What I usually found was for the same position there will be usually a company add on its website, these placement companies will re hash the job description and place it on their website or use Workopolis and Monster. Also going through network becomes so convoluted and layered sometimes it just doesn't matter, I would just rather go to company website submit my resume. That's our company policy as well, even when you are coming through some acquaintance, HR will ask you to submit an application online. Then it must go through HR screening, then departmental screening, then finally the hiring manager gets the short listed resumes.

One important question asked was approach of all of this. Never burn the bridges and come to Canada. You got to respect whatever little you have where ever you have that, you can always end up with having even less. How much time it will take to find a job depends on lot of variables, but its definitely a time consuming endeavor.Everyone's background, education, skill is different. But 1-2-3 weeks is unreasonable expectation. I would suggest take a sabbatical from current job and come on scouting trip for few months, if your company allows remote work, if your company has Canadian branch take a transfer perhaps. These might look like far off possibilities, but you need to explore your possibilities, I have seen all those possibilities. I was doing remote work for 6 months before I found a job. My friend took transfer to Canadian branch of his company, stayed here for 4.5 years got his citizenship. My cousin took unpaid leave for 3 months, then took another trip for 4 months before finding something reasonable to settle down.