Why is it so difficult to get a job in Canada?

I have an advanced degree and good work experience, but still struggle to find a job in Canada.

How do others find a job in Canada so easily when I have been struggling for such a long time?

I would have been a Canadian PR by now had I just been lucky enough to land a job in Canada.

Is this you? Are you struggling to find a job in Canada with no real idea why you are unable to impress Canadian employers? Well, perhaps you don’t have the skills that Canadian employers are looking for!

Skill Vacancy Areas for Canadian Employers

Every hiring decision is based on what an employer needs and whether the candidate has the skills, qualifications, work experience, and other qualities than the employer needs. If you are struggling to find a job in Canada, then perhaps you need to focus on the skill vacancy areas in Canada and compare it with what you offer.

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A ranking of the skill vacancy areas by the Conference Board of Canada has identified 35 skills that employers are looking for their business. A skill vacancy area, as the name suggests, refers to a skill that an employer’s business is currently lacking and which the employer is seeking to fill through the hiring process.

Interestingly, the top-20 skills that Canadian business are lacking are dominated by soft skills or human skills. Technical skills form the latter part of the list. In fact, knowledge of mathematics is ranked 21^st in the list of 35 skill vacancy areas while science is way down at the 29^th rank.

Simply put, Canadian employers are not struggling to find candidates with good knowledge of science or mathematics or other technical and task-oriented skills.

The top-six skill vacancy areas are active listening, critical thinking, reading comprehension, speaking, monitoring, and coordination. It is estimated that Canadian businesses face a loss of $1 billion for each of these six skill vacancy areas.

In fact, the total unrealized value of the 35 skill vacancies is, as of 2020, around 1.3 percent of Canada’s GDP.

Your Canada Job Action Plan

There’s no point denying the obvious. If Canadian employers are looking for specific skills, then the smartest thing to do is to acquire those skills to boost your chances of getting a Canadian job.

And it’s not just an opinion or the employer’s perception. There has been a steady increase in the number of liberal arts graduates entering the tech sector in recent year. In fact, they may well be outnumbering the number of engineering and science graduates choosing to join the tech workforce.

Here are some actionable tips for you to boost your prospects of landing your dream job in Canada.

• • Explore diplomas, certificate, and other courses focusing on the specific human skills that Canadian employers are seeking. If you have the required technical expertise and qualifications, then it’s probable that absence of these soft skills is pulling you down.
  • If possible, try to undergo a formal course or program for such skills in Canada. These credentials are likely to impress employers more than foreign courses.
  • Adding a bit of Canada study experience to your CV can make a huge difference to your job prospects if you succeed in qualifying for the Post-Graduate Work Permit.
  • Highlight your strong human skills in your CV as well as when defining your job profile. Even employers don’t always signal their needs properly. Anticipating them and covering this aspect in advance can make all the difference between success and failure.
  • If you are a student, then focus equally on building up technical competence as well as the human skills. Even if you don’t think they are useful, having what employers think they need will definitely improve your position in the job market.

Finally, it won’t be a bad idea to have an immigration professional with experience and expertise guiding work permit and immigration candidates through the process. Even somebody who is not a recruitment expert may have useful advice and guidance even as your work permit or immigration application is finalized without any hassles.