Seeking Input on the Canadian IT Job Market

Nafe92014

Hey All,

I'm curious if there are any active Canadian IT folks on here that could chime in on their IT market in their province. Reason why I ask is because we basically have to complete an 8 week unpaid work practicum before graduation from the program. So I kinda would like to hear which provinces have the best demand for IT (Manitoba is TERRIBLE right now).

I have only gotten in touch with a first cousin of mine in Ottawa and he is the Director of Technical Services of this company (Welcome to IOSI) which deals with Watchguard Firewalls and Cisco. However, I think the CoL in Ontario is fairly high compared to Alberta. All I know is, I want to relocate from Manitoba after graduation to a higher market area.

Thanks for any feedback

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Comments

eugene_86

Hey Nafe92014,

I am from Montreal, Quebec and also have to complete a 10 week unpaid work term just like you. The market here seems very good, but the demands are very high, bilingualism here is a must at 90% of the places. French comes before English in this province so even the entry level 1 tech support positions are hard to get into without a good oral and written knowledge of both French and English. Besides that the market is pretty hungry over here and I base that on the amount of call backs I have received in the past 3 weeks after having begun my job search.

echo_time_cat

I work for an ISP in the Kitchener-Waterloo Area of Ontario. We're always hiring in Tech Support, and have been for the nearly 3 years I've been there.

The unpaid internship/co-op thing you are doing is very common. Most graduates I know who work for us have done that.

I guess you could throw some search criteria into indeed.ca and simply go province by province

I moved to Ontario from BC, because at the time I saw the IT job market out here as the strongest, and my french, not-so-strong

. It's worked out well for me, I haven't been un-employed and have had job offers via linkedin (sign up if you haven't already)

JasminLandry

I am from Montreal as well and I believe the market is excellent here. I have to agree with @eugene_86 though, bilingualism is an absolute must and not 90%, 100%. But I disagree with the fact French comes first as this depends on the company. I've work for 3 companies and 2 of them were 90% English while the other was 90% French. I also get approximately 2-3 calls/emails a week from recruiters while I'm not even looking for a job. On top of that, when I went for an interview for an internship when I was finishing school, the company hired me right away. Of course though I had a 3 month probation but it's still nice that I didn't have to go through the internship process and that I was getting payed

Dieg0M

For Quebec, Montreal has a lot of entry-mid tier jobs. Most of the high-end positions are in Toronto. Both Montreal and Toronto are good right now but you might need to speak french for some Montreal positions.

eugene_86

Hello Diego0M, awesome blog! I will be following you're CCDE journey. I myself am planning to begin my CCNP journey.

Nafe92014

I thank you all for your advice. Quebec is definitely a no go for me (I'm not good at French)

. I'll keep these places in thought though (especially the advice from a Canadian CCIE

Mutata

Deep in the bowels of Toronto here.

I've never had too many problems finding jobs and have done pretty well the last year considering I'm definitely not as hardcore motivated as many of the other people here - although I want to be. Currently a Unix/Linux Engineer for a large company based in the downtown area. Gone through 3 different jobs in the past year - each a considerable upgrade (and yes probably a bit quicker than I wanted - but one doesn't turn down 10k+ pay raises).

My previous place was hiring Technical Support guys 24/7 and I get contacted by recruiters all the time. Although its starting to creep into some interviews, I can say having 0 certifications has only been a deal breaker for one company I interviewed for, who were paying far under market value.

The only pretty painful thing about Toronto is the really high COL