As a follow up to my last post I thought I’d add that help is at hand for all professional job hunters in the Vancouver area. However, it’s a case of unearthing the buried treasure. There seems to be a multitude of Provincial and National Government funded programmes that the intrepid professional job hunter can tap in to.
I was at a British Expats Meet up group last month and struck up a conversation with a guy that was having similar problems in finding employment. He mentioned that he’d been to the north shore YWCA for a 6 day course for professional status immigrants, the PTW workshops. So I called the YWCA and was asked to contact Vancouver Family Services as I’d need a referral to sign up for the workshops. Next step was to meet with a Case Manager in the Employment Services team to discus options for the job hunt. It was at this meeting that I really started to discover the buried treasure.
Even though I’d been to a Canadian Human Resources centre to ask about what assistance was available to new immigrants, nothing was mentioned about the YWCA or FSGV, or for that matter, any other agency providing assistance to job hunters.
Anyway, following a discussion with my newly appointed case manager I was presented with a range of funded programmes that I could tap in to, the most interesting being a 10 day Successful Contracting and Consulting (SCC) course. My next step is to attend the SCC and follow it up with the PTW to learn all I can about how the local market works. If I find employment, fine, if I don’t I’ll be geared up for self-employment.
So, despite the transition penalty help is at hand. It’s a case of don’t give up, network, make contacts, take advantage of funded programmes, whatever it takes to beat the statistics.
