Could you help me with a job offer from a Canadian Employer while I am still in my country?

In order to answer one of the most common questions among professionals that are job hunting and have not arrived yet in Canada, I would like to share a bit of my experience with the much dreamed process to be hired through a COMPANY SPONSORED JOB OFFER, in legal terms LMIA (labor market impact assessment)

It is important to highlight that this is not a legal advice, merely an insight on my personal experience, since I’m neither a lawyer nor am immigration consultant in Canada. My insights are based on the experience of someone who has interviewed over a thousand potential immigrants in their home countries and another three thousand professionals already in Canada with their work visas, which is a very considerable number of cases.

My purpose with this article is not to discourage anyone, but to share a plain view of the reality faced by many who are just beginning or exploring new ways to legally come to Canada. I will also try to show the importance of knowing and finding alternative ways to live here in Canada always within the legal processes.

There are several ways to legally get a job in Canada through several well-structured programs at both national (Federal) and regional (Provincial) levels. Those allow qualified professionals to apply for a work permit directly from their countries, even without a job offer. Such programs offer a visa entitled Permanent Resident, which is equivalent to the US Green Card.

A job offer from a Canadian employer can be done for any professional from abroad, once the company complies with the appropriate legal guidelines. More information can be found on the Canadian Government's website at: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/express-entry/documents/offer-employment/lmia-exempt.html .

For this process, the company must be financially stable, given that it will need to take responsibility for and to support a new employee who is applying from overseas. The company must also prove that such position/vacancy has been posted for recruitment in at least 3 nationwide websites ideally more websites both locally and nationally in the Canadian market for a period of at least 60 days.

Moreover, the company must prove that no other qualified professional has been found within canadian citizens or permanent residents is also necessary in this process. The job must have been widely posted throughout the country, with an adequate salary for region.

That means that, theoretically, there is the way, but you may still ask:

“Do you know people who have already had a sponsor visa approved?”

“How feasible is having such a visa approved?”

Although the work visa approval mechanism from a job offer is in place, it works only for exceptions. Try to put yourself in the Hiring Manager/decision maker’s shoes. Would you, as a manager of a company in your home country, go forward with a job offer, often without proper time for a deeper review of the candidate’s professional skills, while also having to check his/her references and how reliable they would be from a distant country?

Based on my experience here I would say that only a handful of Canadian employers are motivated to move forward with a job offer in such scenario.

Also, such decision is very much based on the difficulty of validating a candidate’s efficiency, job performance and work ethics from distance. The company would also need to afford to wait for a professional's visa approval for at least 4 months, while also keeping the job position open for new applicants.

When looking for a nuclear physicist, a Russian cybersecurity programming language programmer, or an industrial printer maintenance specialist there is a good chance of finding a company willing to support such a professional still in his home country, but keep in mind that these are specific and isolated scenarios.

Thus, in reality, such processes tend to happen with very specific and targeted vacancies that end up not being filled with the professionals who are already in the country or are obtaining their work visas in another way (study, work and holiday, spouse studying in a public institution enabling full time work permits for themselves and obviously federal or provincial programs just to name a few alternatives that can be better explored with a field professional or Canadian government website).

In the last few years, Canada has received about 300.000 new permanent residents who are planned to account for more than 1 million in the next 3 years. Yes you did not misunderstood! The country is adding up around 1% of its population each year due to the lower birth rate and the number of retirement professionals leaving the job market in the next years.

My suggestion for those who are willing to come to Canada is to thoroughly research all available options and create their plans A, B, C, D thus maximizing their chance of success and not betting all their chips on just one alternative as sponsorship by a company. My advice is to look for other alternatives and to do it fast, since the chances are wide and open for now, but no one knows what the future holds and a large volume of professionals from all around the world is moving here. Once you have a valid work permit and the social insurance number the market is quite open for newcomers that have a good background and an adequate level of English and/or French.

As a final tip, every time you read “CANADA is looking for candidates from your country"... BE EXTREMELY CAREFULL. 

This can be actually a very simple way to mislead candidates, since Canada is looking for good professionals regardless of their nationality.

I wish a great week to everyone and good luck. I am available if you have other suggestions or questions feel free to comment