1- Facebook is already used by numerous immigrants
Facebook is used by families in order to keep in contact after one of the family members leaves their country of origin. Many immigrants keep in touch with family back home in several ways, including phone, mail, e-mail, Skype, as well as Facebook. And ever since Facebook has partnered with Skype to allow users to use Skype video-conferences directly on the social media site, this option has become that much more appealing.
Like all other job seekers in North America, immigrants using Facebook for their personal life must be made aware of the potential career risks related to social media activity. While 86% of employers will search the social media profiles of their job candidates (PR Newswire), only 12% of Canadian job seekers actually think that social media are important for their job search (CERIC). We can imagine that some immigrants - those who are past a certain age, used to job-searching in a pre-Internet era, or who originate from countries where social media (and the Internet in general) are less accessible - might not realize the importance of social media in the job market here. On the other hand, some of the younger generation of immigrants may have become used to using social media non-stop; the chances that they are leaving traces of their activity (and as a result too much personal information which could harm their professional image) are high. In short, all need to learn the importance of managing privacy settings, of respecting netiquette (etiquette on the net), and of the increased visibility of content shared online.
Furthermore, Facebook is one of the most complicated social media sites out there. Clientele you work with who are already using Facebook probably have all the skills required to learn how to use other social networks (Tiwtter, LinkedIn, etc.), just as long as you provide them with the appropriate information and resources, such as your ongoing support and our written materials.
2- The importance of a social network in the absence of a professional network
When you immigrate to Quebec, you generally travel alone, or with your spouse or your family. You rarely come to Montreal with your supervisor in tow. You immigrate with a personal social network (if any), and rarely with a professional network. The latter almost always needs to be rebuilt from scratch.
Before being able to focus exclusively on their professional career, most newly-arrived immigrants have other issues to tackle. Upon arrival to Canada, the most pressing needs tend to be personal: finding a temporary, easily-obtained job to cover basic living expenses (not to mention finding a place to live), gathering information on important services in close proximity, such as community centers, daycares, employment centers, hospitals, etc., learning how public transit and commercial transactions function here, etc. These new arrivals, in the process of discovering local culture and the way we do things in Quebec and Montreal, will no doubt have made numerous contacts in the process. Knowing how to keep in touch with those we've met and who have helped us, and asking them for help or information in order to find a better position in our field or according to our skills, requires knowlege of how to use your social network. This in turn requires developing social skills that may go beyond those used in professional networking.
Furthermore, when we're searching for a job, the difference between one's professional network and social network becomes blurred. If, when you're working, your professionnal network includes people you've studied with, worked with, your counterparts in other companies with whom you talk about work and the best practices in your field, as well as members of associations or professional orders, that doesn't mean that only these people can help you find a job when you're looking for one. Take the example of an accountant, who must keep in touch with the norms and trends in his field at all times, and thus must keep in touch with a certain number of other accountants when he's working. However, when he finds himself searching for a job, he also needs to keep his entire network (both social and professional) aware of the steps he's taking to find one. Indeed, every organization needs an accountant, and therefore, anyone who works in an organization or company is a potential link to an accounting job, and any one of them could refer him to or keep him informed of openings in their network or at their workplace. The importance of these connections can't be overlooked!
3- Get recognition for your foreign/overseas work experience
We often hear that immigrant job seekers don't have trouble finding job postings to apply to, but rather struggle to get or keep a job. One of the obstacles to getting a job in the first place is getting employers to recognize the worth of your work experience acquired in your country of origin or other foreign countries. Many employers are ignorant of the job market in other countries, even in their own industry, and don't know what to think of applicants' foreign work experience, which certainly doesn't help otherwise-qualified immigrant workers to get hired.
To ease this recognition process for employers, rather than simply providing the name and contact information of your former superiors as references in your CV, you can use LinkedIn to obtain a recommendation from that superior which will be visible on your profile. Thus, rather than asking your potential employer to do all the leg work, including contacting your references overseas (if they even speak the same language in the first place, of course!), you can simply provide them with a collection of comments from former employers and colleagues in the recommendations on your LinkedIn profile. The potential employer therefore won't have to make any additional effort to learn if your overseas work experience will contribute to making you a good employee for their organization: a single click on a hyperlink will do! We recommend including the customized URL to your public profile on LinkedIn, either in your contact information in your CV or in your e-mail signature, and all a potental employer will have to do is review the positive comments found in your profile.
Furthermore, if you're in a high-tech sector or high-end profession (notably those linked to science and technology) but you don't have any particular online presence, many employers will think that you aren't up-to-date with the latest discoveries in your field, and that your knowledge is or soon will be outdated. Creating profiles on professional networking sites such as LinkedIn or Xing, for example, could be a temporary solution to this problem, by giving the impression that you're actively connecting with other people in your sector.
4- Know the job market
Finally, when moving to Quebec, one might know which sector they want to work in, and have all the required skills and qualifications for working in that sector, but nevertheless not have all the relevant information for optimizing our job search process. Do you know all the major employers in your sector? Work experiences, skills, trainings or accreditations required that you should obtain first? The professional orders, associations or groups you should join? The laws that pertain to work in your field? You might not have all the answers to these questions, but they are accessible if you know where to look. One of the ways to get this information, or to learn where you can get it, is to be very active within networking groups on LinkedIn and Facebook, to follow the profiles of important personalities and of companies in your sector, and many other social media uses covered in our training material. To know more about the job market in Quebec, one of the best ways to have access to information is to learn how to use social media for professional purposes.
If you know which sector you want to work in and where (IT in Montreal, for example), you can start with a Google search (www.google.com) with certain key-words ("IT" and "Montreal" in this case). Take note of the names of companies that show up in the search results, as well as their website's adress. Try visiting their sites, making sure they truly are in the sector that interests you, and pay special attention to certain key elements: the company's mission or values, their location, names of directors, organizational chart, if they are available. You may even find that their website hosts links to the company's Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn accounts. This will save you the trouble of searching for their profiles on each separate social networking site.
5- Prepare for a job application
Before applying to a job or presenting yourself for an interview, it's a good idea to do some preliminary research on the position that interests you. Include some crucial elements: the department in which you'd be working, the director of that department, the name of the person occupying the position before you, the skills required or work conditions offered in similar jobs with other employers, the mission of the organization, some of the company's major projects or accomplishments, etc. The company's website is of course a good source to start your investigation, but a lot of this information is also available on social media sites, sometimes exclusively. Knowing these things can give you ideas to improve your answers to interview questions, to highlight certain work experiences on your CV, etc. In many cases, it's possible for you to get a job even if you don't correspond to all the criteria they are looking for, especially if you manage to put forth the qualifications and experience that you do have. And today, you can demonstrate these skills as much online as you can on your CV or in an interview.
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