Skilled Worker applicant from US - mail to Sydney, NS?

[farrelli]

Hey,

I'm a US citizen who wants to move to Canada in the next year or two. I don't have a job offer but would like to apply for a visa so that I could move and have the ability to be hired. It seems nearly impossible to get a job offer without such status. From what I've seen, I best fit under the "skilled worker" class (NOC code 2173 Software Engineers and Designers) but the instructions seemingly indicate that you'd have to live in Canada in order to apply for permanent residence under that heading. Is that true? The instructions in one section though also seemingly indicate that if you're not in the preferred job heading section which takes you to the front of the class and/or aren't in Canada, you should submit your application to the Sydney office. Do I have that right? It doesn't seem to come right out and say that but I'd love to get permanent resident status before moving, if possible. I'd prefer to not have to move to Canada and be unemployed for a time before gaining the right to be hired. I score high on the assessment survey and have a pretty good nest egg of money saved up (and even a CA bank account), but just showing up at the border and hoping for the best seems a bit unwise to me.


Thanks.

 

[Leon]

If you are one of the 38 occupations, you mail to Sydney but 2173 is not on the list of 38 as far as I know. If your job duties match closely enough to a software dept. manager which is on the list, you can try that. Or as long as you have 1 year experience in the last 10 years in any job on the list, you can apply.

Otherwise, you need a job offer. You can scout for jobs online, try to set up interviews, then go to Canada on vacation and try to get a job offer.

If you get a job offer, there are 2 options. 1. Get your prospective employer to apply for an Arranged Employment Opinion (AEO) which you can use to apply for residency either through the Federal skilled worker program category 2 or through a PNP program depending on the province. 2. Get your prospective employer to apply for a Labour Market Opinion which will allow you to apply for a temporary work permit. Some jobs in IT are LMO exempt which makes it simpler, see http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/work/special-tech.asp If you managed to get one of those, you do not need an LMO to apply for a work permit.

If you go with option 2 of temporary work permit, you will always have a chance later to apply for permanent residency. You would take your LMO or if you have a job offer that doesn't require one, take your job offer to the border and apply for a work permit there.

 

[farrelli]

Thanks for the reply. No, it's not one of the 38, so I guess that means that I can't apply for residency or even a work permit outside of Canada unless I have a job offer - which is pretty difficult to get even outside of a recession? So does that mean that the best course of action is showing up in Canada without a job, hanging out until such time as you qualify to apply from within Canada, and then applying? That would be pretty stupid, I would assume creating conditions wherein many if not most new immigrants are unemployed or significantly under employed.

If you apply or most jobs online, they ask up front if you're authorized to work in Canada, and if you check "no", even if you're intensely qualified, they're just not interested. I mean, there is one company in Canada who might give me a job offer because I've been working with their software for a decade and have an administrator certification from them, but I don't think I want to move to that town.

Can you recommend a better way for me to get working rights in Canada? If worse comes to worse, I do have enough money to move there and not work for a couple decades, but I don't want to do that. Thanks.

 

[Leon]

Hey, if you have that much money, I need to get paid for my advice

No, actually, it's not a good idea to come to Canada and "hang around". If you did that you would only have visitor status. You could stay for up to 6 months and after that would either have to leave or apply for a visit visa extension which may or may not be granted. They do not really want you to live in Canada as a visitor permanently. You would also not be covered by health care and you would never get the right to apply for immigration just by staying in Canada as a visitor.

One thing is, if you have loads of cash, you could look into investor options. Many of the provincial nominee programs have investor classes where you can get PR if you invest a certain amount of money in a business in that province, sometimes as low as $150,000. You should check into it if you know where you want to live. You might have to have a business plan and business experience though and you might have to stay in that province and show some business results in a year or two. You can also get a PR from the federal government if you invest 400,000 for 5 years without having to fulfill any business ideas or live in a certain province.

 

[farrelli]

Again, thanks for the reply. You must be making a really big difference in the lives of a lot of people in helping them move to CA.

I actually have thought about investor class, but I only qualify by a little. The thing which would stop me from doing it is the fact that you have to drop that $400K of your money into the system for five years, and as I understand it, only get the principle back, no interest, no nothing. I love Canada, but a long term interest free loan? Come on! I'm 40 years old and want to settle down in my life and live reasonably well, so giving nearly half of my painfully scrimped and saved for fortune to Canada is a little out of the picture.

I've never thought of the provincial thing. $150K I could part with for awhile, but I have no business experience or knowledge. That might put me out.

To your original point about the software manager position that is part of the 38 blessed jobs, I wish that I could qualify, and in many ways I do because I'm the guy who makes a number of six figure IT decisions for my company and then implements them (Which is how we ended up with Canadian enterprise level software. Go Industry Canada!) but I don't actually have the manager title or sign the checks. My boss is the guy who really stamps final approval on things, even though he's a rubber stamp. My company doesn't want to promote me because they wouldn't be able to find anyone who does what I do now. I always was relatively OK with that because they pay me well and give me all kinds of perks, but now that I know that a manager position would have been my golden key to Canada, Im kicking myself.

So, how do all these other people get into Canada then? Im in Toronto a few times a year (part of the benefits of buying Canadian software) and more than half the population there seem to be immigrants driving taxis and whatnot. I can't imagine that the cab companies were offering jobs abroad, so how did they get there? My big consternation in all this is that I'm months to, at the outside, two years from wanting to pull the trigger and move, so finding that I might be locked out of the country I've loved all my life is insanely frustrating.

Thanks again.

 

[Leon]

You don't have to have the title of a manager to apply as a manager as long as the job duties mostly match. Canada immigration recognizes that job titles may vary so they take more notice of the duties involved.

Thought of going back to school? You could go on a student visa for a couple of years. If you finish a 2 year course and get a job offer, you qualify to apply for PR through some of the provincial nominee programs. You'd have to check out the requirements of the programs before you pick a province and school. If you do a 2 year course and then work for a year on a permit, you could also qualify to apply for PR through the Canadian experience class. Crisis will hopefully be over in 2 years so might not be a problem getting a job.

As for all the other immigrants who are driving taxis and what not, many of them got in under the old FSW system when the list of the magic 38 did not exist yet and you could apply just with points and no job offer. Many immigrants have also come in on temporary work permits, this is back when you could get jobs, and then applied for PR later.

 

[farrelli]

Man, I'm really starting to get depressed. I've got a good education, valuable technical skills, a good bit of money, good communications skills (even basic French), and a significant knowledge of Canada, nevertheless, I can't find a way in. Companies almost never offer jobs to people who aren't currently authorized to work in Canada, and you cant get authorized to work in Canada unless you're offered a job. Is this well designed system the product of the Conservative government that I love so much (that's sarcasm)?

At this point I'm starting to think that maybe my best bet would be to go work for the Canadian software company that I work with in Kitchener seeing that they'd almost certainly offer me a job (and probably even pay for my immigration procedure) even though they're a HORRIBLE company to work for - absolute slave drivers with a turnover rate that's insane. Do you know how long I'd have to stay there? From what I've seen, if you go into Canada by way of a job offer from a company, you essentially become an indentured servant, unable to move to another company for quite sometime, and subject to surrendering your residency if you quit. That would be unpleasant.

My other option might be working for another university. They're usually accustomed to dealing with employing folks from other countries, and the fact that I've worked for the Harvard Medical School and it's associated world renowned hospitals for over a decade might carry a certain cache and entice them to offer me a gig even though I don't have work rights. Actually, working for universities, healthcare, or the government are what I want to end up doing, seeing that I seem to be good at it and think that I could make a positive contribution to Canada. I think I could get jobs in any of the above relatively easily, but getting that elusive work visa is the problem.

I think I want to move to Sudbury, ON (yes, Sudbury), so places of possible employment are relatively limited. The additional limitations of having to get a job offer and the reluctance of employers to do so is rather spirit crushing. In another catch 22 policy, the government admits that it's a problem that most immigrants end up in a handful of big cities and don't end up contributing to smaller town Canada, but at the same time, apparently make it nearly impossible for most newcomers to settle there.

As cheap as I am, I think I might try to hire a lawyer to see if they have any ways in for me. None of the Canadians that I know (many work here) can believe that I'd have a hard time immigrating, but here I am, apparently shut out.

Btw, if I do try for the manager job title and get rejected, do you know if I'd be out the filing fee seeing that I couldn't reapply under another job code seeing that it wouldn't be one of the approved 38?

 

[Leon]

Oh, you know French? Want to live in Quebec? You can apply as a Quebec skilled worker without a job offer. Go to http://www.immigration-quebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/index.html and check out their immigration programs. Your PR would be equally valid as any other PR but since it's through Quebec, like with any provincial program, you would have to land there and make an attempt to settle there but if it doesn't work out for you, nobody will stop you from moving somewhere else later.

If you take the offer of buddies in Kitchener to bring you in, since ON doesn't really have a PNP program as such, at least not the last time I checked, it was very much inferior to most of the other ones, you would have 3 options to get PR, 1. Get employer to get an AEO (certified job offer) and use the AEO to apply for a skilled worker category 2 which would take you straight to PR and as soon as you land you can thumb your nose at them (although that would not be very nice), 2. Get them to get an LMO so you can get a work permit and work for them for a year, then apply for skilled worker category 3, after you apply, nobody will stop you from quitting and changing your status to visitor while you wait, 3. Get an LMO and work for them for 2 years and then apply under Canadian Experience class. If you do 2. or 3. you bet you would be an indentured servant. If they know you want PR and they know you have to stay with them, many employers will abuse it. See your weekly hours going up and benefits go down, I think so.

There are certain software professions that don't require an LMO in which case it would be easy to get a work permit. I think I mentioned those in my first or 2nd post on this thread. I don't think it's impossible to get a job as a foreigner. It depends on if you find somebody that needs you. Although if you need an LMO, that can be hard to get because Service Canada needs to agree that they need you. AEO is actually easier.

If you were to apply as a skilled worker under the 38 category, if you don't qualify, they return your application (eventually) and your processing fees (even more eventually) but you do get them back.