Moving to Canada as Electrical Engineer - Entry Level 15

[hmmy]

Hello everyone,

I have decided soon to immigrate to Canada from Greece to build my career as Electrical Engineer (I am fresh-graduated). Tell me general your opinion and especially for the following things:

1) What regions are better for electrical engineers? I have seen, British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario.

2) I want to work in a combination of software engineering and electrical engineering in oil - natural gas industry. What programming languages and software programs I have to focus on? I know very well Matlab (Simulink etc) and C / C++ programming languages, but I do not think they are enough... My plan is to improve my knowledge in Python, Java, IEC 61131-3 programming languages for PLC and Autocad. What else?

Thanks in advance.

Are you ready for the future?

 

[hmmy]

@ marty007, thank you for your info and your wishes...

 

[MintJulep]

Why limit yourself to oil and gas?

http://careers.bombardier.com/our-hiring-process

 

[robopm]

If choosing universities for a masters, I wouldn't look to UBC unless you have some savings. It's rather expensive, and in my experience, most employers don't care which university you went to for your masters, so long as it was at a Canadian university, or is well known. I'm just finishing at the UAlberta, and it's a fine school.

 

[moltenmetal]

hmmy: sorry if my attempt to knock the rose coloured glasses off your eyes, felt to you like a slap in the face. All I'm trying to do is open your eyes and prepare you to make an informed decision.

I skimmed that silly BC government labour market projection report- more marketing document than report! It is from 2012, and forecasts a "tight labour market" in 2018-19. Are you planning to come now, or in 2019? It quite clearly shows a labour market which is the OPPOSITE of tight for the only time for which its projections have a hope of being accurate, i.e. 2013- and there has been a slump in oil prices since then. That whole report is based on forecasting- crystal ball stuff, full of wishful assumptions motivated by the "industry partners" who are inevitably behind reports like this. It predicts 100,000 new jobs from LNG export projects alone, as an example of wishful thinking embodied in that report.

There are similar industry-sponsored media reports about shortages every few days here. And people believe them- they give people hope and make them feel good about themselves.

In contrast, the OSPE report is based on measurements- Canada's national census data over the past 20 years. The trend is unmistakeable. Fewer and fewer engineering grads here, regardless where they were educated, actually work in their chosen field. And it's not all by choice. If it were, the fact that the ones who work outside engineering earn something like 20% less, on average, than those who do, would indicate that they were making choices against their own economic interests.

Engineers Canada did a similar labour market projection study, with the participation of Randstadt- a temporary staffing company (conflict of interest much?). Even though the data in the study showed that we were generating far more candidates for engineering jobs than were required to satisfy even the most unreasonably optimistic estimates of economic growth, retirements and replacement demand, and that this trend was likely to remain into the future as the baby boomers start to retire, they STILL concluded that the labour market would be tight. Why? Because they took the fact that most engineering grads fail to gain access to the profession as a given- as inevitable, and normal. They were looking at the effect of changes in supply/demand balance on employer PERCEPTIONS of labour market tightness, rather than basing it on the labour market supply/demand balance itself!

The OSPE study demonstrates the patent falseness of that assumption. Two decades ago, the fraction of engineering grads and immigrants working as engineers was DOUBLE what it is now, and it has gotten steadily worse each and every census.

The fraction of engineering grads educated outside Canada, who are actually working as engineers, was only about 20% as of the last census. The 20% that succeeded are just fine, thanks, and not all of the 80% who didn't are unhappy either- but some are bitter as hell and they bad-mouth Canada publicly as a nation of liars. They feel they were recruited here under false pretenses, for jobs that didn't exist. They certainly have a point, based on the data!

As to the licensure requirements: if you meet the academic requirement, that's fantastic, as it's a huge hurdle if you don't. I still suggest that you apply, pay the fees, submit the transcripts and get that ARC review in writing, from APEGBC- not from the useless Engineers Canada- and that you do all of that BEFORE you come. That you can do that prior to arrival was done for a very good reason- people who come and then are surprised by having to write sets of technical exams are generally very, very unhappy about that fact when it happens to them! And it's totally unnecessary.

I don't know where you're getting the notion that you have to write an academic exam about "general engineering"-whatever that is- if you meet the ARC requirement. And yes, I had a look at the APEGBC website! In most provinces, and certainly here in Ontario- if you meet the ARC requirement, you merely need to gain your four years of mentored work experience and then write the ethics and law exam which is NOT a technical examination whatsoever. If you were a Canadian grad, here in Ontario even registering as an EIT before writing the exam and applying for a full license wouldn't be mandatory. But for you, I strongly suggest registering as an EIT before coming- it will certainly help you with a job search.

As to your rant about the benefits of youth versus experience- good for you. My own company prefers to hire and train young engineers and NEVER suffers from shortages- but we're not typical in the industry here. All I was telling you is what employers are looking for- what shows up in their job ads. If you're young and motivated and full of fire, by all means come here and find or create your own job- and the very best of luck to you! Just don't blame Canada if it doesn't work out the way you'd hoped.

Finding the job before you come is key. It will make all the difference to both your ability to succeed here and your ability to become a landed immigrant once you're here. Focus on that.

 

[chrislaope]

moltenmetal, you are an honest gentleman. I do believe Canadian government has made mistakes on its immigration polices (or you can say they lied to outside world about their engineering employment status). Maybe its intention is to build Canada into an ideal heaven country that every body in the country is high level educated (with Bachelor, Master or even Ph.D. degree) no matter he/she is a janitor, a laundry man, a restaurant cooker, a taxi driver, etc.

I do not read those government employment paper reports. I read real world facts around me. Here is what I read from my surroundings:

a Mr."C", a MSc. degree, now is a semi. driver.
a Ms."P", a Mechanical Engineer with Master degree, now is a CNC operator in a family size Customer workshop.
a Mr."H", a PhD. in engineering, now works in a grocery store.
a Mr."W", a PhD. in engineering, has been doing post-doctor for over 12 years for over 5 different professors and still can not find an university position and still unable to find any engineering job either.
a Mr."L", a Mechanical Engineer with Master degree is now a drafter in a small company (he is lucky).
another Mr."W", a Mechanical Engineer with Master degree, now is now a welder in a small company.

etc.

Don't want to discourage anybody, but truly to say, U.S. has far much more engineering job opportunity than Canada.

 

[chrislaope]

Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself.

I currently live in U.S. and work in a decent company (with decent pay and position(senior engineer, PE), over 100k salary, and have been worked in the same company for around 10 years). 16 years ago I immigrated to Canada with engineering master degree and around 8 years engineering experience. During initial 5 years, I can not find any related engineering job in Canada and have to go back to U of Alberta. after I got a master degree, I still cannot find a related job. (I do got a job offer by walk-in myself into a small company, but they only offer a CNC operator position, which of course I rejected). Then until 5 years later, I find an opportunity to immigrate to U.S. and then got my current job.

 

[moltenmetal]

chrislaope: your experience is not unusual, sad to say. It is true also of many Canadian-educated engineers that I know personally- they got jobs in whatever they could find when they graduated, being unable to find suitable entry level engineering jobs, and after a few years their engineering degrees were viewed as insufficient to find a job in engineering. Some are doing very well. Others much less so.

Your experience is not surprising to me at all, since during the 2001-2003 period, more engineering immigrants attempted to settle in Toronto alone, each and every year, than we graduated from all of Canada's engineering universities COMBINED. More than 70% of immigrants to Canada under the former, seriously flawed "Skilled Workers" program, attempted to settle in either Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver. Sound far fetched? Difficult to believe? Toronto represented, at the time, something like 17% of Canada's jobs- maybe a touch more of its engineering jobs, but not double for sure. It was certainly never going to be able to find engineering jobs for a group greater than the entire nation's graduating class! And those stats are verified- they were so difficult to believe that they had to be checked all the way back to the CIC raw data before people would believe them. The rates of immigration have eased considerably since then, but we're still bringing in at least half as many engineering degree-holders as we generate every year. Regrettably on average, only 20% of them (the ones educated outside Canada) ended up working in their chosen field, per the last census. The average for all engineering degree holders irrespective of where they were educated, was only 30%.

I'm very glad you landed on your feet. Sorry it took so long and put you through so much. Canadians are overwhelmingly positive toward immigrants and immigration in general terms- almost uncritically so. It is only in recent years that they started to get upset with the abuse of the temporary foreign workers program by businesses and forced the Federal government to clamp down on it. That program was just the tip of the iceberg. Done right, immigration provides opportunities for people to build a new life for themselves. Done wrong, it robs people of their professions and dumps them on the economic scrap heap. We got it wrong for a very long time, and the business lobby wants us to keep getting it wrong- for their private profit. There's a whole "industry" here related to immigration, both in the for profit and not-for-profit sectors, and after a while it gets a life of its own and starts to set policy. In the old days, when we accepted primarily refugees and asylum seekers, and limited the number of purely economic migrants based on the help wanted index etc., it seemed to work well enough. But bringing in professionals at rates far higher than the economy could possibly use is a failed experiment. Too bad it harmed so many people in the process!

 

[miningman]

Well I have to concede that the last couple of posts are a lot more balanced that some of the earlier ones. If the OP manages to get to Canada will he find it easy? No. Will he suffer discrimination to some extent ? Yes undoubtedly. Will his standard of living be dramatically higher than if he stayed in Greece?? Yes undoubtedly even if he ends up as a truck driver or a CNC operator. Would his life be better if he chose to go to the USA?? I don't know, neither does he, nor does anyone who has an opinion. My advice still stands....focus on what employers want, and a major hint.... in my world we don't want or need MSc, MBAs PhDs. All those do is paint you as overqualified. Give me a good basic BSc, I don't really care where it comes from , and demonstrate a good attitude, willingness to pay my dues, work perhaps excessive hours in perhaps miserable conditions until you've got some really marketable skills THAT ARE IN DEMAND SOMEWHERE OTHER THAN IN YOUR OWN MIND... and you'll make a success of life in Canada. And also recognize that what be true in one province is not necessarily true in other provinces, but in my view there is still way more opportunity out west than down east. And one more piece of advice to any immigrant..Leave the "Back home we did it this way" attitude back home. We don't care how you used to do it, we have our own ways of doing it, generally for really good reasons. You had a good reason to leave the country of birth, embrace, don't reject or fight against your new country's culture / way of living. I came here in 1975 and never looked back

 

[Sparweb]

Hmmy,
I'm flattered that you consider Canada an ideal place to immigrate, over so many other first-world countries that you might have chosen instead. I have to agree; living just a few miles down the road from paradise is pretty nice.

I won't wade into the employment debate, which is already well discussed now, but I have a parallel opinion to offer: Don't just move to a city just because there must be jobs there. That is only partly true. Canada still has a very "rural" culture and economy, and there are good jobs for people who are willing and able to live and work in the country, smaller towns, or the remote development projects that are far away from our city centres.

This sort of breaks down to a "old-fashioned" vs. "modern" model of economic development in Canada, where the resource economy dominated for most of our history, and only recently has the modern urban life become the norm. This is very different from life in Europe, which is carpeted with urban development. I think this is the point that Mininman is also trying to bring up, and Moltenmetal, too, to some degree. Forgive me if I seem like I'm trying too hard to point it out. Any assumption based upon a European view that professionals work in offices and offices only exist in cities, is both false and detrimental to your prospects for work or a good life in Canada.

When I was young, growing up in a small town, some of the most influential people on my life were immigrants (one was from Hungary, one from Pakistan). They had chosen to live outside of cities and established themselves as professionals in a town that had trouble attracting them. So in that sense, they prospered because they chose life in the countryside, not despite it.

Urban life is a valid option, of course. Just 6 months ago I met an engineer from Greece, who moved to Canada about 4 years ago, and settled in Montreal. Just before the greek banking crisis, the job prospects in Greece were also bad (and they've only gotten worse since, I'm sure you would agree). This person was able to find work in engineering at Bombardier as an engineer. His family has moved to Canada with him and is doing quite well.



STF

 

[TD2K]

< Thousands there are finally realizing that people who told them that oil and gas is a cyclic business and that the bust is inevitable, were not lying. >

Interesting discussion here. I graduated from UBC in 1981 when things were great, multiple offers, companies begging you to fly out and interview "you don't like that job, fine, what do you want and we'll see what we can do". My boss walked in my office a couple of times that first year with a raise out of the blue.

1982 and the oil industry collapsed. The joke was "Please God, let there be another oil boom, I promise I won't piss it all away this time". Looks like things never change.

The oil and gas industry is basically a industry of boom and bust and I doubt we've seen the last of either.

 

[calguy07]

OP: no one can tell you what decision to make. You've heard the negative but there are some positives as well. I was in a similar situation as you not too long ago. I had no hesitation in leaving my country as there literally was nothing there for me and it sounds as if it's the same for you. This is what others like MM need to realize.

At the time I also think I started a thread on here just like this and read basically the same thing from MoltenMetal, back in the mid 2000s', lol. I knew I had nothing to lose by coming here. After considering what MM had to say, I was pretty open minded about coming here and enrolling in a 2yr college and finding a new path. Luckily for me, I came during the boom and was lucky enough to find a job and now, I'm coming close to my 10yr mark in engineering. Here's the thing though. In my experience, lots of immigrants here in Alberta have found engineering jobs. Of all the people I interact with on my job, I'd say about 50% are immigrants. There are cases of people coming to Canada and having to find survival jobs, but there are also lots of success stories. And I also know a few younger immigrants who are also doing well. One way or another, things always seem to sort themselves out. You may come here and get lucky as well and find an engineering job or you may have to re-train and find a new field. Either way, you likely won't regret moving here, especially since it doesn't seem like you'd be leaving much behind in Greece. It will always be better to put yourself in a situation where the percentages are in your favour. In my case, I had a ZERO % chance of getting what I wanted. Even if Canada only presented a 15% chance, it's still better than the zero.

 

[moltenmetal]

calguy07 has exactly the right advice, and attitude. But people have to come here with their eyes wide open, without the delusion that Canada is a land of unfettered opportunity where merely having an engineering degree is a ticket to a life of luxury. That definitely is not the case, irrespective of where you got your degree. Are the odds better here than in Greece? Probably- but that's not saying the odds are particularly good here. In fact, the odds here of an engineering grad working in an engineering job are less than 1 in 3- and though some left by choice and are happy to be well shot of (happy to be gone from) engineering, many more never got the chance.