HOPVIOUS said:
Hi, Omaus,
I'm also Civil Engineer here. I guess there're not many civil engineers here
. Do you plan to apply for EE? Have you got any information on job hunting in Canada? Is it very difficult as other professions since you need one year Canadian experience to get your license.
Hello colleague, and it looks you are right, not to many civil engineers around, at least that want to participate in the thread.
I can see you have done your homework, and yes, we do need a full year of full time employment before licensing can be obtained, and please keep in mind that even after obtaining that year, we need to take a code of ethics test as well,which I have been told it is mandatory.
I have discussed this with APEGA in Alberta, I started the process of obtaining my member in training status for now, (it is easier and quicker), this way I can demonstrated that my academics are to the standards of any potential employee within our profession there. As soon as I have the opportunity of starting to work there, I plan on validating my international experience in order to obtain a foreign license first while I accomplish that one year of Canadian experience. You can see here specifically for Alberta:
http://iegatapega.ca/index.php/licenses/member-in-training/mit-license
You can call them too, they are very nice and helpful over the phone.
To answer your questions: Yes I have the intentions of applying under EE, but I am going to wait the first 2 months to see how the system works and check what needs to be done from the applicants perspective to submit a correct application, in the same time I am going to create the profile on the job bank (as requested by EE), and promote myself with potential employers. This brings me to your next question, job hunting, and here it comes down to your professional experience and your language abilities, how you handle phone interviews and how you market yourself within your personal set of skills.
In this sense let me ask you, as a Civil Engineer what type of experience you have, are you a designer or a PM, are you more of a RPR that a Staff Engineer, do you have a specialty, such as Transportation, or Municipal Engineering, Waste-water Engineering, Environmental, etc. And within this broad topics, do you have special technical skills, (this are hugely valuable for employers in Canada), as an example, are you familiar with Microstation V8, Civil 3D, Map 3D, Revit (Structural and Architectural), SAP2015, Primavera, can you do survey work, do you know how to set and operate a topo robot, total station, etc...? Here I can elaborate more, but I would like you to tell me a little bit more so I can direct you better in the job hunting process.
As a personal experience I can tell you that this job hunting process comes down to send your resume, follow up with phone calls and emails, if you have what they are looking for then you have one foot in the door, after that it becomes what I explained above combined with the willingness of the employer to go through the LMIA process.
Let me know if this helps, good luck bud!
