Dear Employment Specialist,
As software developer who recently ended her contract and is looking for work, I was excited to come across a JVS Job Fair that is coming up soon, with some fantastic employers in my field.
I am particularly pleased to have an opportunity to meet hiring professionals face to face and am keen to make the best of this opportunity. Any tips?
Signed: Keen on Job Fairs (KJF)
You have finally been invited to an interview for that ideal job with that perfect company. You arrive on time, well prepared and dressed for the role. You answer the questions just as planned and ask intelligent questions. The interview is over, and you are sitting on the bus on the way home, wondering: was it a success? How can you tell if you did really well in the interview?
Here are some signs that you made the right impression at your interview:
If the interview extends into a friendly enthusiastic conversation which lasts longer than the standard one hour, consider yourself interesting enough for the interviewer to prioritize getting to know you. The opposite is true too – if an interview is unexpectedly short, it may be that the employer has decided that they are no longer interested.
Dear Employment Specialist,
After being laid off from my Inside Sales job, and struggling to find another suitable job in my field, I went to JVS Toronto to get help. With the help of my JVS Employment Counsellor, I have now finished preparing my resume, and have begun to work on my LinkedIn profile. My Counsellor recommended that I simply cut and paste my resume into the LinkedIn profile, but when I looked through other profiles of people in my field, I noticed that many people have profiles that are very different from what they might have on a resume.
I noticed that their LinkedIn profiles were often longer, and some seemed more casual and personal than a resume should. I’m confused now: should my resume just be an online version of my resume?
Thanks,
Signed: Need Help with my Profile (NWP)
Dear NWP,
That’s a question that I often hear from my clients. Your Employment Counsellor is correct: when preparing your LinkedIn profile, it helps to have a well written, spell checked and proof read resume from which to cut and paste. But, as I see it, that’s only your first step — once you have inserted the jobs, education and summary from your resume to your LinkedIn profile, you have an opportunity to add so much more valuable information about yourself. The goal of this is to make you stand out to employers as not just suited for the job, but as an interesting, impressive and likable person.
Think of your resume as your brochure, or self-marketing document: it’s brief (no more than two pages long), and written in concise, simple, and formal language (without first person pronouns). Your resume goes back no further than 10 years. It also is supposed to be adapted to each job to which you apply.
Your LinkedIn profile, however, is quite different. It is a living, dynamic record of you and your career. LinkedIn provides you with a chance to tell your story using a range of media (text, slideshows, photos, documents, websites and video). It is supposed to be more a personal description of you — it includes your photo, an opportunity to share your personal interests or passions, and to share your activities.
As a job seeker who is sending out resumes to potential employers, make sure that your LinkedIn profile reveals something new about you. You want them to be impressed by who you are and your personality, in addition to your expertise and professional background.
Start off with cutting and pasting your summary/profile, jobs, and education into your LinkedIn profile. Next, consider whether you want to add other jobs that you might have left off your resume. Check out the LinkedIn profiles of other professionals in your field to help you figure out the best tone and style for your profile, and set out to inspire and impress your next employer.
Best wishes for your job search!
Building professional connections is a great way to find opportunities that could lead to employment – especially when you are a newcomer to Canada. Networking with professionals in your field for information and career growth should be an important aspect of every newcomer’s job search strategy.
The good news is that you can start building your professional network even before you arrive – for example – by using LinkedIn as a professional networking tool.
This was the topic of discussion for CanPrep‘s webinar.
This interactive webinar shares insights on LinkedIn’s professional profiling techniques and how to maximize this tool to further your job search and market your skills in the Canadian job market. This webinar recording will provide information on:
In recent years it has become clear to policy makers and employers that there will soon be an unmet demand for skilled technology workers in Canada. Presently, the ICT (information and communications technology) sector is worth $741 billion per year, and employs almost 900,000 professionals throughout all sectors the economy.
A March 2016 report by the Canadian Information and communications technology Council (ICTC), titled Digital Talent: Road to 2020 and Beyond projected that by 2020, there will be a huge growth of the size of the global Internet of Things (IoT) economy, which could exceed $19 trillion. The term “The Internet of Things” describes the economic activity surrounding smart and connected technologies – which has wide impact, including on industries or sectors such as manufacturing, financial services, health, transportation, essential services and cities, as well as media and creative industries. The report describes Canada’s adoption rate of these technologies as still lower than other similar economies worldwide, mostly because of a lack of enough skilled workers with the necessary technological skills to enable companies to keep up.
The ICTC report describes that “the growth in digital jobs has outpaced the overall economy in the last two years by over 4 to 1, leading to a strong demand of 182,000 skilled ICT workers by 2019”, saying that “unfortunately, the domestic supply of ICT graduates and workers will be insufficient to meet this demand” It calls for engagement of “all available talent, including women, youth, immigrants, Indigenous persons and persons with disabilities” as critical in mitigating the talent shortage.
The report outlines the knowledge and skills required by employers, including a balance between technical, professional and personal skills:
Technical Skills Business and Management Skills:
Business and Management Skills:
Soft and Interpersonal Skills:
Specifically, the report predicts that the finance and health care sectors will have the highest demand for ICT labour in the next four year, specifically:
Interestingly, the report claims that many Canadian youth are opting out of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) courses. The report recommends that the provinces make computer science mandatory in the education curriculum from Kindergarten to Grade 12, to and nurture:
It also recommends “upskilling” the existing workforce, through:
The report also calls for government to work harder to attract “global digital talent” and strengthen “digital literacy and digital skills for Canadians”, as well as work on “developing a comprehensive strategy that supports the transition of displaced workers into high demand jobs in the digital economy”.
In response to this report, the federal government has recently announced of a new pilot “Global Talent” project which aims to bring in more highly skills workers to Canada.
JVS Toronto is accredited under Imagine Canada’s national Standards Program dedicated to operational excellence.