How I got three job offers while being outside Canada

[axolotl]

Welcome to Toronto! Was fun reading through your "advice/diary entries". Always fun to read about people choosing to settle in Toronto. Just wanted to comment on your plans for real estate investments. The Toronto housing market has been very lucrative as an investment but I would imagine that your colleague started investing over 5 years ago and perhaps at the pre-construction phase. I have a hard time believing that if your purchased today the returns would be that good unless you create a rooming house. Just wanted to temper your expectations. Also given all your hard work and your savings I would treat yourself to a $20 meal a bit more often Trust me you never know what can happen!

You're absolutely right about the real estate market in Toronto.

He buys houses (duplex/triplex) outside Toronto. To quote him, "only idiots would buy houses in Toronto now."

We also exchanged our schemes on tax minimization in Canada, the US, and the Netherlands, using various corporate structures. The more I talked to him (and two other Jewish colleagues), the more I felt that I should have been born a Jew myself

 

[canuck78]

The outrageous valuations have also spread to the suburbs. Actually they have seen the highest yearly percentage increase in prices recently. I am guessing he probably bought in North York if we are talking duplex/triplex. That is not really considered a suburb anymore. Prices have gone up an unrealistic amount within a 1.5 hour radius of downtown Toronto. Many local and foreigners that are highly leveraged and can only remember the market going up!

 

[axolotl]

The outrageous valuations have also spread to the suburbs. Actually they have seen the highest yearly percentage increase in prices recently. I am guessing he probably bought in North York if we are talking duplex/triplex. That is not really considered a suburb anymore. Prices have gone up an unrealistic amount within a 1.5 hour radius of downtown Toronto. Many local and foreigners that are highly leveraged and can only remember the market going up!

Much farther away than North York. Places more than 3 hours away by car from Toronto.

A fun scheme to make one's mortgage interests tax-deductible without having to incorporate anything is as follows. You and your brother/sister each buys a house and rent it to each other for 1 CAD a month. Since now the house is an investment instead of your own residence, you are allowed to deduct the mortgage interests from your salary income. Brilliant! If I cannot find someone whom I can trust enough to play this game with, I may consider divorcing my partner to take advantage of it. (Unfortunately a married couple cannot play this game with each other.)

 

[canuck78]

Very impressive returns given the distance from TO. Either student housing or Ottawa. Don't count on it because some of these loopholes/creative accounting are targets for our current finance minister.

 

[axolotl]

Some update on my PR application.

I received two messages from the IRCC this morning, which surprised me as it's Saturday, requesting PCCs from the Netherlands and Singapore respectively.

Officially I am supposed to use these two requests to apply for PCCs in SG and NL. Both countries in principle issue PCCs only with official requests from other governments or commercial organizations. But in practice, SG accepted the ITA and NL accepted a generic form that I found by chance on IRCC's website. Therefore before receiving the two messages, I had already got my PCC from SG and my partner's PCC from NL.

This afternoon I received my PCC from NL so I submitted all three PCCs, with an extra letter of explication.

The reason for the LOE is that I received, and uploaded (post-AOR) the SG PCC when I was still a resident of Singapore. But now I live in Canada and the SG PCC was issued before my last day in SG. So it is not very clear whether I can re-upload the SG PCC or I must get a new SG PCC. (Actually the IRCC should not have requested the SG PCC since they already have it.) Eventually I uploaded the old SG PCC with this LOE, explaining that I had already uploaded the SG PCC when I was still in SG. I also appealed for a new SG PCC and attached the confirmation to the LOE.

I hope it will work. I just hate having to spend 30 CAD to get fingerprints and 55 SGD to get the PCC, and to wait xxx days until I finally receive it. Hopefully the one handling my case is sympathetic enough. Worst-case scenario is that my application gets rejected and I will have to re-apply.

The LOE is as follows.

Madame, Monsieur,

J’écris cette lettre pour expliquer la situation concernant le certificat de la police Singapour.

Après avoir reçu l’invitation à présenter une demande de résidence permanente, je l’ai utilisée pour demander un certificat de la police Singapour, espérant que cela pourrait accélérer le processus. La demande a été approuvée et j’ai reçu le certificat le 6 juillet 2017. Au moment-là, j’avais déjà présenté la demande de résidence permanente (le 26 juin 2017). Immédiatement, j’ai téléchargé le certificat via le lien dans l'accusé de réception.

Après, j’ai entendu que l’EIMT (l’étude d’impact sur le marché du travail) avait été approuvée et j’ai quitté le Singapour le 15 juillet 2017 et je suis arrivée à Toronto le même jour. Je travaille depuis deux semaines chez [xxx], un tech startup basé à Toronto, avec un permis de travaille fermé.

J’ai téléchargé à plusieurs fois toutes les informations pour vous tenir au courant.

Ce qui n’est pas tout à fait clair pour moi, c’est si il faut demander à nouveau un certificat de la police Singapour. Au moment où je vous ai envoyé le certificat, j’étais encore une résidente de Singapour, alors que maintenant, je travaille et habite au Canada.

Pour être sûr sans retarder le processus, je décide de retélécharger le certificat de la police que je vous avez déjà envoyé, tout en demandant en même temp un nouveau certificat de la police Singapour. Je vous tiendrai au courant dès que je le recevrai.

Je vous remercie pour la compréhension.

Cordialement,

Petra

P.J.: la nouvelle demande de certificat de la police Singapour

 

[axolotl]

I got an email titled Ready for Visa / Prêt pour Visa on 18 August at 21:03. It seems that my gamble saved me some good money (55 SGD for the PCC, 5 SGD for postage to Canada, plus an unknown amount to get fingerprints in Canada and send them to Singapore).

According to the instructions, my partner and I will need to send our passports and photos to the High Commission of Canada in Singapore. This hardly makes any sense, as neither of us lives there. I will call IRCC on Monday and see if it's possible for us to send our documents to Ottawa and Amsterdam respectively. It would save me some more money.

The interview with Wall Street Journal was a disappointment. It took about an hour and not even my name got mentioned in the article. The comments (mostly negative) are actually more interesting than the article itself.

For my real estate investment project, I talked to TD, Scotia, and RBC and most likely I will go with RBC. 20% down payment with a prime-minus-0.4% interest rate seems reasonable for someone who just came to Canada a month ago. A hard requirement is that I need to have the 20% with a Canadian institution (bank or broker) for at least 90 days - a regulation to prevent money laundry.

I finally decided against moving my salary outside Canada for investment purposes. The idea that my money would earn only slightly more than 2% in my savings account with Tangerine is hardly appealing. So I opened both a regular and a TFSA investment account with Questrade. It seems to be the best option for someone who does not yet have a lot of money within Canada.

On Thursday 17 August I was interviewed by the largest newspaper in Japan, whose name I cannot remember. Like the WSJ, they are interested in "talent who chose Canada over the US". Hopefully they will write something more interesting.

So far I really enjoy my life in Toronto. With Twitter Singapore, I worked only for 2 or 3 hours a day - I mean really working instead of pretending to be working - and managed to save almost 100k USD in my ten months there. In Toronto, my productive working hours are about six hours a day and I save much less (due to higher taxes and the fact that the company's stocks are not publicly traded). Yet every morning, I feel great on my way to work instead of saying to myself "Shit! I don't want to go to work." as when I was in Singapore. I enjoy talking to my colleagues and know how much value my work will be for the company and as a consequence for my stock options.

EDIT: I went to Passport Photo at 327 Spadina Ave. I got three photos for only 9 CAD including taxes. The owner/photographer was very friendly. Highly recommended. The only inconvenience is that they only accept cash.

 

[canuck78]

I got an email titled Ready for Visa / Prêt pour Visa on 18 August at 21:03. It seems that my gamble saved me some good money (55 SGD for the PCC, 5 SGD for postage to Canada, plus an unknown amount to get fingerprints in Canada and send them to Singapore).

According to the instructions, my partner and I will need to send our passports and photos to the High Commission of Canada in Singapore. This hardly makes any sense, as neither of us lives there. I will call IRCC on Monday and see if it's possible for us to send our documents to Ottawa and Amsterdam respectively. It would save me some more money.

The interview with Wall Street Journal was a disappointment. It took about an hour and not even my name got mentioned in the article. The comments (mostly negative) are actually more interesting than the article itself.

For my real estate investment project, I talked to TD, Scotia, and RBC and most likely I will go with RBC. 20% down payment with a prime-minus-0.4% interest rate seems reasonable for someone who just came to Canada a month ago. A hard requirement is that I need to have the 20% with a Canadian institution (bank or broker) for at least 90 days - a regulation to prevent money laundry.

I finally decided against moving my salary outside Canada for investment purposes. The idea that my money would earn only slightly more than 2% in my savings account with Tangerine is hardly appealing. So I opened both a regular and a TFSA investment account with Questrade. It seems to be the best option for someone who does not yet have a lot of money within Canada.

On Thursday 17 August I was interviewed by the largest newspaper in Japan, whose name I cannot remember. Like the WSJ, they are interested in "talent who chose Canada over the US". Hopefully they will write something more interesting.

So far I really enjoy my life in Toronto. With Twitter Singapore, I worked only for 2 or 3 hours a day - I mean really working instead of pretending to be working - and managed to save almost 100k USD in my ten months there. In Toronto, my productive working hours are about six hours a day and I save much less (due to higher taxes and the fact that the company's stocks are not publicly traded). Yet every morning, I feel great on my way to work instead of saying to myself "Shit! I don't want to go to work." as when I was in Singapore. I enjoy talking to my colleagues and know how much value my work will be for the company and as a consequence for my stock options.

Can imagine that the not so great experience may be due to working at Twitter. Can't imagine the morale has been great at Twitter for a while.

 

[Jeksis]

I got an email titled Ready for Visa / Prêt pour Visa on 18 August at 21:03. It seems that my gamble saved me some good money (55 SGD for the PCC, 5 SGD for postage to Canada, plus an unknown amount to get fingerprints in Canada and send them to Singapore).

According to the instructions, my partner and I will need to send our passports and photos to the High Commission of Canada in Singapore. This hardly makes any sense, as neither of us lives there. I will call IRCC on Monday and see if it's possible for us to send our documents to Ottawa and Amsterdam respectively. It would save me some more money.

The interview with Wall Street Journal was a disappointment. It took about an hour and not even my name got mentioned in the article. The comments (mostly negative) are actually more interesting than the article itself.

For my real estate investment project, I talked to TD, Scotia, and RBC and most likely I will go with RBC. 20% down payment with a prime-minus-0.4% interest rate seems reasonable for someone who just came to Canada a month ago. A hard requirement is that I need to have the 20% with a Canadian institution (bank or broker) for at least 90 days - a regulation to prevent money laundry.

I finally decided against moving my salary outside Canada for investment purposes. The idea that my money would earn only slightly more than 2% in my savings account with Tangerine is hardly appealing. So I opened both a regular and a TFSA investment account with Questrade. It seems to be the best option for someone who does not yet have a lot of money within Canada.

On Thursday 17 August I was interviewed by the largest newspaper in Japan, whose name I cannot remember. Like the WSJ, they are interested in "talent who chose Canada over the US". Hopefully they will write something more interesting.

So far I really enjoy my life in Toronto. With Twitter Singapore, I worked only for 2 or 3 hours a day - I mean really working instead of pretending to be working - and managed to save almost 100k USD in my ten months there. In Toronto, my productive working hours are about six hours a day and I save much less (due to higher taxes and the fact that the company's stocks are not publicly traded). Yet every morning, I feel great on my way to work instead of saying to myself "Shit! I don't want to go to work." as when I was in Singapore. I enjoy talking to my colleagues and know how much value my work will be for the company and as a consequence for my stock options.

How do you keep landing these newspaper interviews?

 

[axolotl]

Can imagine that the not so great experience may be due to working at Twitter. Can't imagine the morale has been great at Twitter for a while.

I actually liked my Twitter colleagues in Singapore a lot. My manager was also a very decent person. The problem with Twitter is in the upper management. There is a clear distinction between those who manage and those who are managed.

At my current employer, I don't need to think twice when I want to make a joke with my colleagues or even the CEO. Having learned from an Israeli colleague - half of the development team, as well as the two founders, have the Israeli nationality - how to say "you are a son of a bitch" in Hebrew (Ya ben zona), I told the CEO I wanted to impress him and then said this to him. This is something that I would never do at Twitter.

 

[axolotl]

How do you keep landing these newspaper interviews?

Both were through one of the early investors of the startup where I am working. The startup is willing to do it for public relations and future recruiting. I am willing to do it because I don't mind being paid for chatting with a journalist

 

[canuck78]

I actually liked my Twitter colleagues in Singapore a lot. My manager was also a very decent person. The problem with Twitter is in the upper management. There is a clear distinction between those who manage and those who are managed.

At my current employer, I don't need to think twice when I want to make a joke with my colleagues or even the CEO. Having learned from an Israeli colleague - half of the development team, as well as the two founders, have the Israeli nationality - how to say "you are a son of a bitch" in Hebrew (Ya ben zona), I told the CEO I wanted to impress him and then said this to him. This is something that I would never do at Twitter.

I would guess that Twitter wouldn't be most tech employees 1st choice. A good work environment makes all the difference. You are very lucky to have found such a good fit.

 

[God of war]

Someone asked me for advice. I think what I shared with him/her may be also useful to others. Below is what I wrote.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I got one question: Instead of "Dear Sir/Madam", how one should address an employer in email?

 

[axolotl]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I got one question: Instead of "Dear Sir/Madam", how one should address an employer in email?

Great question!

Unfortunately, you have already more or less failed if you have to use Dear Sir or Madam to address an employer. (In general, if you have no clue about the identity of the person you are contacting, Dear Sir or Madam is the most appropriate.)

I would suggest that you invest some time - usually a few minutes should suffice - to find out who is the person responsible for that position and then you can simply address that person Dear (first name).

Below is a LinkedIn message that I sent before.

Hi (first name),

I am a Wharton alum with 5 years' experience in banking, now working at Twitter as a data scientist. I wonder whether we could have a quick chat about job opportunities at [company name]. I will be available between 9am and 11am (Ontario time) on most days. Thank you.

Best,

(my first name)

I used Hi instead Dear because I was writing to an alum. In general I would not use Dear Mr. xxx or Dear Ms. xxx. A bit too formal in my opinion.

 

[axolotl]

UPDATE: I called the IRCC this morning and learned the following.

• My file is in Ottawa.
• For some unknown reason they still had my Singaporean address in their system despite the several address updates that I filed through CSE. Hence the instructions to send our passports to Singapore.

The agent sent me a link to update my address online but the website through the link could not locate my file via the UCI or application number. So the agent updated my phone number and address manually. She also told me not to send anything to Singapore and wait for another email with updated instructions.

I also checked with my colleague. The Japanese newspaper that interviewed me is Yomiuri Shimbun.

 

[God of war]

Great question!

Unfortunately, you have already more or less failed if you have to use Dear Sir or Madam to address an employer. (In general, if you have no clue about the identity of the person you are contacting, Dear Sir or Madam is the most appropriate.)

I would suggest that you invest some time - usually a few minutes should suffice - to find out who is the person responsible for that position and then you can simply address that person Dear (first name).

Below is a LinkedIn message that I sent before.



I used Hi instead Dear because I was writing to an alum. In general I would not use Dear Mr. xxx or Dear Ms. xxx. A bit too formal in my opinion.

Perfect. Thank you. I hope it will help my friends from my home country who are looking for jobs in Canada. Btw, I just got lucky to get a good job(Excellent work environment and good salary). I was a fresher(graduated last year in May 2016 and started working since June 2016 as I had to wait for my work permit. I'm not from any top institute at all however, I was able to get around 100k+ as a fresher ( Just mentioning so that it could motivate others that it's okay if you are not from top institution, you can still make it )