One thing you guys should bear in mind before coming to Canada, Calgary in particular is, unless you have a qualification or experience in engineering, construction or any sort of manual labour, chances are you won't be able to find a job where you're qualified right off the bat. I have a degree in business with marketing from home and, although I knew the chances were slim of me finding my "dream job", I wanted to at least try and find a job where I was qualified. This turned out to be a mistake and left me for two whole months without work...
I began my search on line by using the popular job search website indeed.ca and I recommend this website for those of you who may not know of it. I stumbled across a job in entrant marketing, this is a job where you have a degree in marketing but no experience and require no training i.e. moi. This job that I stumbled across was for an "up and coming" company, offering training, medical after 6 months, travel opportunities, weekly pay (it's normally every two weeks in Canada), no comissions, paid training, $20 per hour, the list goes on! Sounds amazing right? I thought so...
I jumped at the opportunity and applied immediately! I was contacted to come in for an interview the following week. I was so excited and nervous all at the same time! First job interview here and potentially could have a job where I'm qualified! What are the odds! I went to this interview and no word of a lie, it was literally, LITERALLY, two minutes long. That should have been a dead give away and, those of you reading this who have been based in Canada longer than I have can probably sense it. The interviewer basically ran through the company and who some of their clients were. They had 3 in total but, I only actually recognised one of them, a Canadian version of a well known charity but, of course I pretended to know of all three. During the interview, I was asked how my friends and family would describe me in three words and naturally, when someone asks you this, you pick the first three words that pop into your head! I mean, what are you going to say? Lazy, stupid and negative? I think I said, "friendly, hard working and passionate". I was told I could have to speak to up to 100 people a day and would this bother me, to which I said no. I was asked would I be interested in progression through the company and eventually go into management and, I answered yes to this. That was essentially it folks! I was then told I may or may not be selected to come back the following day for a second interview and I would be contacted later that day had a been successful. From that initial interview, there is no way a potential employer could effectively assess anyone and therefore, I knew I would called to comeback as there was nothing I said that ruined my chances. Sure enough, I got the call and received and email confirming my second interview.
This email stated that during my second interview I would be "shadowing" someone to see if the job was meant for me. It also stated I should dress in a "business casual" manner. Because it stated business casual, this suggested to me that I would witness them try to establish a new client, or creating a new PR campaign for an existing one or some sort of a situation like that. What I didn't expect to be doing was door to door sales for the previously mentioned Canadian charity in what felt like -18 degrees for 9 hours!!! For only it has snowed that same day and I was forced to wear several layers and snow boots, I would have showed up wearing little dainty ballerina pumps and clothing that would have kept me in no way warm! I mean, what the hell! I had literally, NO IDEA this is how I was going to spend the day! What's more, for only I brought a small lunch and had an opportunity to eat it before we went to work, I would had no food for the whole day. How could they leave me so in the dark?! On top of all this, because I was only shadowing someone, I didn't get paid a dime! I have never been more p***ed off in my whole life!! Never again. Learn from my mistakes , if something sounds to good to be true, it probably is.
The second opportunity that arose for me was brought on accidentally if you will. Myself and my boyfriend Larry attended a newcomers fair at the end of February. While we were there, I stumbled across another marketing company. It was the only stall at this fair that was directly associated with marketing. I approached them and asked who they were and what they did as I was unfamiliar with the company. A brief explanation later, I was told I could do an interview for available positions... right then and there. Naturally I panicked! What would you do? The room the fair took place in was full of people and therefore, was very loud and busy. The interviewer also had a strong foreign accent and I couldn't understand a single word they said! I was even unsure who the company or what the job was! Feeling on edge, I decided to chance it and do the interview as it didn't feel like a smart decision to walk away from another potential job where I was qualified. Throughout the interview, again, I could hardly hear or understand the interviewer and for that reason, thought "oh well, I tried!" once it was over and thought nothing more of it.
Little did I know, about a week later, I received a call straight up offering me a job! Just like that. Alarm bells go off naturally, given what happened the last time! I was extremely sceptical about it. In fairness to the company, they were far more upfront about what I'd be doing and where. It was a job very similar to the first one only I knew I would be based indoors. Ultimately, I decided to give it a try and see how I would get on. However, during my training, I found them to be inconsistent and unprofessional and this made me worry about how they would treat me as an employee. I gave up very early on in the training and decided to try and find a job as a waitress or in retail. I needed the money and couldn't stand the boredom any longer. Most days, I ended up housebound! There's only so many times you can go for walks with no end destination, go to the library, walk to Starbucks or clean your apartment 100 times over. Thankfully, third time was the charm and I have landed a job back in retail. During my interview, the conversation flowed really well and we seemed to connect instantly. I'm looking forward to working for this company and will update you guys on how I'm getting on in a future blog post.
Thanks for reading,
Ciara.
