I am really sorry if my posts are downers... :'(. Believe me I am not here to spread optimism or pessimism. I am just stating what I see, so new immigrants are better prepared. If you have no idea what you are getting into you will always fail, and more importantly you would not even know what hit you.
Good example is my nephew, who just enrolled in MBBS course back home. He was asking how he can migrate to Canada. What am I supposed to say, yeah come here after you finish your course. You will get a royal welcome, license in a year or two, another few you can have your own practice. Then you can happily live ever after.
OR
Should I not tell him how difficult it is to break into the system for foreign medical graduates, should I not tell him about doctors and dentist driving taxis here,should I not tell him it will be years and years of doing survival jobs. That too with uncertainity that he might never get to practice his chosen profession. Its better to get into some other profession if he is really thinking of immigrating.
When someone asks me about economy of Calgary or settling here, should I just say streets here is paved with gold. When I know how much hit Calgary has taken because of low oil prices. Just google and you shall find about the layoffs here. Actually most of the info that forums like this provides is one google search away. We just contribute in terms of personal experience.
There is no charm lost in doing survival jobs (covering my bases else you might term me snob along with pessimist......
), any job whether taxi driver to janitor to CEO are honest days work. Any honest profession should not be looked down upon. But then here is where many of the immigrants dont want to climb down their high horses as well. If you were Manager,CFO, CIO and Director back home, you have MBA+years and years and experience from your native country, thats all fine and good. But understand how much cache that will buy in Canadian job market. If you get stuck on saying I will only look for CFO and CIO positions with just foreign credentials and experience, good luck to you. Also this not a rule, if you have MBA from LSE or Harvard or Yale and good international experience, of course you will get much better response and much better bargaining power. Now don't accuse me of being discriminatory just because I point out MBA from Ivy league is worth more than a MBA from Universtiy of 'Who Knows Where-Top Ranked In My Country'.
Hard work and positivity is key to success, not denying it. But be realistic, thats what I aim. My posts might not help you, but it might to others. So I just put down my experience, I don't worry about spreading pessimism or optimism. Realism is what I am tying to spread, based on my observation.