Not entirely true.
while its very hard for a new grad to get their foot in the door, its not impossible. The world out there is not all rosy as one might think and its a very tough lesson that one learns when you have to go through it.
1. who you know may help you get noticed but not necessarily help you get a job. In an employer's market (which is the current situation), the employer has the upper hand of picking the best candidate (most education, experience etc..) . in other words, the most bang for the buck type of employee is what they are looking for.
the employee will have an upper hand when the jobs are readily available and not enough applicants (like it was before the recession).
I have had got my resume noticed through "connections" a couple of times but it still was not enough to get a job because there was someone else with more experience and skills than me. connections may help you find a labor job paying minimum wage or if you are a very politically connected person, but in between; not so much.
2. Experience is what counts the most. and by that i mean canadian work experience. you could have decades of work experience in india, that still wont give you an upper hand on someone with a couple of years of canadian work experience. Thats the cold hard truth of it. so if you bring your work experience over from wherever you come from, you have to grasp the fact that it may not be worth $hit here.
3. Universities (ivy league) or not may or may not have an effect on you getting a job. If a sensible employer has to pick between a C-grade student from McGill vs an A-grade student from TRU, you know who would they go for.
What a university can offer you (and this is where a smaller vs a big university does make a difference) is the resources that it provides you for job hunting. Co-op programs are better at some than other and quite often new grads get offered jobs at the companies they did their co-op at. similarly, some universities have better resources for after-grad job hunting than others.
4. you have to adjust your expectations based on a lot of things. Graduating from an MBA program with no real world work experience (as is the norm in India) and feeling entitled to a managerial job and nothing less would do, this can get you in trouble and leave you jobless for a while. When canadian work experience is lacking on your resume, no related job is small.
For e.g. i graduated with a Comp Sci degree + co-op work experience but had a very hard time finding that first job. I applied for everything related to my education and was offered a tech support position at a small software firm. I know i was over-qualified for the job and i certainly did not need a degree to do it but that was step 1. after a year or so, i applied around and got a better job and biggest factor that got me the new job was the specific experience from the old one. So, its all relevant.
5. you also need to be open to move freely when building up that work experience and looking for that first job. I had attracted interest from government services in nova scotia but just couldnt move due to family reasons. But dont confine yourself to a particular province/ area.
6. do volunteer work to build up your resume. you can find tons of volunteer work in your area related to your education/ career goals. Believe it or not, this really stands out on your resume and gives you an extra edge.
7. work on your resume and cover letter. If a particular format you are using is not getting you any replies, switch it around and try another format/ style. cover letters are usually what get you noticed first. If you cant get their attention with your cover letter, they wont even look at your resume. I had 10-15 different styles of resume's and cover letters that i experimented with.
One of my professors gave me a brilliant idea to catch a recruiters attention. He said to create my own personal logo and stick it on my cover letter. or better yet, put my picture on the cover letter. I know its cheesy but if it makes you stand out from the rest of the applicants, you have the recruiters attention.
8. Be prepared for rejection; its part of job hunting. for every 100 resume's you send out, expect to hear back from 10-15% (this could be more or less based on the type of job and the field you apply in). I cant even remember how many jobs i applied for, anywhere from paid internship to contract jobs to full time to even part time. But i can count on my hand how many interview calls i got.
Job hunting sucks, its not easy, it will kick you in the balls again and again but you have to be stubborn yourself and keep going. If you give up now because its so hard to find that first job, you have another thing coming at you... LIFE.
Good Luck!
