Job Market Stories & Experiences

Now, that I already had my first interview in two years, I would like to share with you some guidelines in How to pass a job interview in Canada.

1. First of all, you have to convince the interviewer that that job is the job you dreamed of from when you was in your mother womb. It doesn’t really matter how you think and who is the real you, you have to convince the person in front of you that the truth is: You envision that job from small ages, and it is what you dreamed of all your life.

2. Lie, lie, lie. In all my experience (and I have a lot) with Canadians interviewers, they don’t like to hear the truth, no way, you have to lie and to be a good actor, play drama, play comedy, play the role of your life if you want to get the job. If you are a person that like saying the truth, or don’t know how to be a good actor, than search for jobs in other places (US is a very good start, Europe, is not bad also), but don’t try in Canada, even you are the best of the best in your field the chances to get a job there are minimal.

Once, I was able to get a HR book in my hands, I was amazed to see in that book that they were told to lie to the candidates. What you can expect from a person that is saying lies, only untrustworthy things.

3. And here comes the next advice to follow, DON’T try to show that you are better than your interviewer, it doesn’t work that way in Canada, if you are better than him/her one day you can take his/hers job, and that is no good for that person. No you have to be lower than him and to stay there. Don’t be a smart ass, that will not give you a job in Canada. The only chance to get a job if you are smarter than the person is interviewing you, is: or that person will be retired in one-two years, or if the product is so screwed up that only a miracle will save it, and they are expecting that you will be the miracle.

4. The HR interview, that is the nicest part, to be able to pass it buy a book about interviews and learn it by heart, when you get to the interview only say the exact answers from that book. The HR person doesn’t need to find about you and to see if you can fit in the collective, no in Canada they need to know if you can learn a book by heart and if you can repeat it word by word. If you don’t have a good memory, forget about a job in Canada, it will not happen, go in US, where the HR questions are humane and you don’t need to learn anything by heart, or go somewhere else, where HR is made by peoples with feelings, not machines.

5. There are others, but first I am waiting for your comments….

Few years ago, during another recession, I got a job in another sweatshop. Medium size company with a lot of branches in North America. I was hired in the R&D department, but this department also had to deal with the manufacturing department and with some other departments.

Form an outsider perspective a company nice to work for, good benefits, vacation, not very good pay but decent for that time.

First day of work, after I signed all the papers: “You have to bring clients to this company and to get what we promised, you will have to be an account manager” “OK, but from my understanding this staff is handled by the marketing and sales department” “No, you have to do it” “Look, I signed a contract as R&D not sales, and to be sincere if I have to sale something to me I will not be able to convince myself to buy it, how do you think I will be able to convince others” “Don’t care, you have to do this job, and I don’t care how you manage it”

At that moment I knew I will not spend too much time in that company, but still, it was a recession and I needed a job. I decided to stay and see what will happen. The time passed, made some friends in the company, find out that the salaries were under the lower limit of the job market. And… one day… we where asked to came to a meeting, a meeting where will be discussed the bonuses and staff like that.

I was amazed, bonuses in a company where the salary is minimum allowed by the government, maybe they came to their senses. I went in the meeting room, there, only guys from R&D and testing departments, all of them sitting straight on the chairs, no smile on their faces, a very cloudy atmosphere. The boss came and .. he started by announcing the bonuses: “Will be 5% of your salary every year” “Great” I was thinking, a senior engineer there was making maximum 29k/year so the bonus will be 14.5 hundred per year - not bad but also not very good.

The nice moment passed, still no smile on the fellow employees faces. And the boss started with the conditions that will lead to getting the bonus. As he was speaking a smile started to grow on my face, and after a few of the requirements I started laughing. He asked me “Why are you laughing?” “OK, I said, I would prefer to tell you this in private and not here” “No, tell it here for the others to hear” “You are sure?” “Yes!!!, he yell” I said “What you are saying is that we will never see these bonuses, because we can’t meet the requirements” “How is this so?”. “First of all you are saying that the company should not lose more than 3 employees per year for us to get the money, but only last week 16 employees left the company, this means that we will never get our bonuses, because we can’t do anything to keep them here, this is the management job and not of a guy from R&D or testing” “No, we plan to keep the employees here, and they will stay because of the bonuses.” I was thinking “You are joking, right? If someone will find a job that is paying 32k instead of 29k do you think that person will stay? Or if a worker payed with minimum allowed will get 1$ more/ hour do you think that worker will stay for a bonus that is covering the gas for one month”. I said: “OK, let say you take care of this (in my mind” in your dreams”) now you are saying that we have to bring at least 10 new customers a year. The total number of the customers that the company have is twelve, and this was done over a long time, how do you think someone from R&D will bring customers? I don’t think we have any chances to do that, if we are lucky and we can convince people in the company that we worked for, may be we will be able to bring one or two, but not 10/year. From what you are saying, the company is giving us a nice bonus that we will never see and that is the reason I am laughing”

Two weeks after this meeting I took another job. The nice part is that after a few days from my resignation I was called by them and offered a job. Job that I turned down and I am sure you understand why.