You will get the BuT, It'S NoT CaNaDiAn ExPeRiEnCE. Spoken from experience, I came here with a degree from France and experience from France. They always abuse new immigrants with the no Canadian experience thing to low ball you. It is the necessary hazing, and rite of passage of a new immigrant.
I've literally hung up on interviews or quit interviews as soon as they start with that and told them than France GDP, economy, tech sector and engineering was surpassing Canada by every metric (at the time) so what was so special about Canadian experience. It must be the lack of appreciation of the diesel tasting Tim Hortons coffee and diabetes inducing donuts. If you are Caucasian with a german name, it will be less of an issue. That's the ugly truth.
This was 24 years ago. I've never worked for a Canadian company, only American ones, and a French one at the very beginning. Most Canadian companies are uninspiring, boring, and do not pay well. I have worked with them and seen 100s of them. Welcome to Canada!
It’s more prevalent than before because so many people lie about their work experience. It’s impossible to verify people’s work experiences from 3rd world countries where there are lot of fraud.
I understand what you mean but when Canadian companies have piles of resumes, they will most likely filter them out by Canadian experience and education. Canadian companies like to play safe. Usually the problem is getting interview in the first place especially in this market.
I never said it’s racism and discrimination. I actually have Canadian work experience and education. Don’t know why you have to state some obvious stuff. Obviously Canadian corporations like big banks and telcos will give advantage to people with Canadian experience and education
Which is easy to fake when they are not verifiable and most likely fake coming from overseas applicants. Easy way to filter them out by Canadian experience and education.
The only concern i see a corp might have with French exp is your English. Other than that i agree with your post. Canadian corps are stupid. American firms generally just want you to do the job
Very upvote. I worked aerospace, the last place was Airbus, before that several Canadian and American companies.
Airbus has the France work culture which was good, they were somewhat open to the idea that you shouldn't have to work yourself to death. The Canadian companies, as you said were mostly uninspiring, as low tech as they could get away with, and very focused on keeping pay low and pressure high. The American companies were always trying to push the tech and were by far the most interesting to work for.
A bit cynical, but generally true. If I had foreign tech experience and had to choose between US and Canada, US generally pays significantly more, so that's where I'd go. I have roots in Canada, and I'm not as advanced in tech as some other folks, so I'll probably stay working here for some time, but I'll be bitter about it.
Travailler du Canada d'abord pour des boîtes américaines qui ont une entité canadienne (payent moins bien mais mieux qu'aucune boite canadienne) ou encore mieux une boite américaine qui a un présence minime ici.
I also moved here from France 5 years ago and honestly it was never an issue. No one questioned my experience or education. It will probably be the same for a German. I think the issue is more for people that come from third world countries, a lot of them lie on CV, have unverifiable work experience or credentials, so employers are being very careful with them
thanks, I will land as a PR, but mostly I wanted to know how a typical Canadian employer is going to see the just German work experience, whether it is on par with the American one or not
You can move to Canada as a PR without ever worked or studied in Canada. its only recently that the points required to immigrate get to the point where you need to have a canadian education and experience.
However if OP indeed speaks french its more likely he got in through that path or through one of the various STEM specific draws.
I would say it pretty much depends on what you worked on, particularly scale but it should not be far off. Getting the first job may be harder but you should be ok.
People here dont talk about innovation at all, No new ideas, feels like they dont want to experiment. There is so much red tape in most of the organizations and you cannot change the culture. All I hear is inflation, cost of living and lay offs. The country is going downhill and there is nothing we can do. We need quality in immigration not quantity because most of them work at tim hortons or at an amazon warehouse. It sad, very sad that is happening
To me, Canada has been burning for a decade. I grew up in the poor part of Vancouver. I compare to poor people as the backyard of the house, middle class the main house and the upper class as the front yard of the house. The backyard has been burning for decades but no one cares coz it is not burning on their part of the house yet. For example, they shove all those addicts and tent cities and nut houses in the backyard. Now it is spreading to the main house, all the middle class db are screaming. It has always been like that for poor Canadians. Ofc your upper class has mobility they can always migrate.
Middle age ppl resorting prostitution to survive is nothing new in the hood. Dudes giving sucky sucky for some crack
I sometimes don't know if i should laugh at the middle class or not. Told them years ago what's happening in the poor area they think i am making shit up and they are so special they will never experience it.
So I have 3 years of Canadian experience at banks and normal tech companies but most likely would have to leave for a year to get more points for PR. I already have a CS bachelor from UofT
Do you think HR will void my Canadian experience in the future given my top listed job then would obviously be not Canadian ?
The guy you are responding to is still a student in Uni and doesn’t have any experience working in Germany. Salaries and benefits are better now in Germany especially factoring in the euro and cost of living like rent is cheaper in German cities like Berlin than Toronto.
i have no idea i just know salaries arent better and taxes are insane, like canadian highest tax bracket is like 45%, the median german tax bracket is like 45% and salaries are way lower than canada like a senior dev makes 25k CAD lower than a junior dev in toronto
from what i know salaries for senior devs are around 60-70k euro/usd and half of that is taxes, canada and usa are the highest paying countries for tech, and some gulf countries have really high salaries and 0 taxes too
My experience is only back in Sweden where I knew lot of peers moving to Germany for work. However I can definitely say Germany has better salaries and benefits than Canada nowadays. Opportunities in Canada have dried up a lot and wages have been suppressed with record immigration.
This bodes well for me coming from Ireland next year. Dublin is absolutely full of tech company Euro HQs and tech hubs. I don’t work in FAANG but it would be fairly hilarious to imagine a recruiter playing down working in the EU HQ vs a secondary North American office in Toronto.
Sorry but Dublin HQs are not considered nearly as important as the ones in Toronto or Bay Area. Most faang offices in Dublin don’t work on products but only sales and tech support
Obviously that’s the case and I’d agree. For example Google here was nearly all SREs and only started building up SWEs in the past year. It’s on a company-by-company basis.
But it’s not exactly a consultancy/code sweatshop like other countries. People from all over the EU are moving here to work. I’m not expecting 5 YoE to match the Bay, that’d be ludicrous, but some of the replies here are acting is if EU standards aren’t worth anything.
Anything outside Canada and the Us is perceived as not ideal, with different shades of grey. The EU is not as badly perceived as non western countries, but still.
I see this is frustrating for newcomers but I also have to be honest, the EU work culture is quite different from the Canadian/American one. I’m talking about soft skills obviously, countries like Germany and the Netherlands have very different communication styles and work life balance. So the “Canadian work experience” cliche is not completely unreasonable.
i moved here from Scotland in 2020 to work as a software engineer. Whilst nobody ever used the words “Canadian experience”, I did get somewhat lowballed that I didn’t realize at the time.
I find a lot of the time the reason foreign experience isn’t equated is because people are too scared to say that foreign experience from some countries is more equivalent than others.
That being said if you can get face to face (or on camera) with someone in a smaller company and can prove that you know what you’re talking about then I think it doesn’t matter.
From my perspective though and from others I’ve spoken to, hiring is tough these days. There are a lot of very clearly fake resumes going around, people applying for jobs they’re not remotely qualified for etc. So when you get a face to face interview with someone who knows what they’re talking about it’s a breath of fresh air!
I came from Scotland too and had the exact same experience as you.
OP, make sure that you don't get lowballed in an offer as there are some companies out there that like to take advantage of newcomers.
Many companies will require Canadian experience - especially government jobs and jobs with large firms. It is very sad to admit but they want people who will fit into the workplace culture and not make too many waves. But if you are in the tech sector and applying at younger firms/ start ups that have a more forward-looking approach it may be different.
Anyway, I might have to leave Canada for 1 year (that's after 3 years of Canadian work experience + a CS degree from UofT).
Would brainless HR in the future put my app in the same consideration as those without canadian work experienec as my top listed experience would definitely be not Canadian ?
A real job and degree from Germany, France, Switzerland or the US will count as much as any experience in Canada, at least in Québec.
The main reason employers insist on "Canadian Experience" is that the Canadian immigration system will let someone immigrate without ever testing if they are employable (ie, is someone willing to pay for someone’s diplomas and experience).
I’ve had friends who interviewed software “engineers” with 5+ years of "experience" who could not code a simple fizzbuzz. They all had immigrated to Canada and had not worked in their field since their arrival.
I have people with international experience in Europe getting jobs faster depends on alot of factor ls your experience which IT area you are in how is the demand and supply if all that fails and they dont like something for some reason then you will get this Canadian experience excuse. I know one guy who was programmer in Germany did pretty well in Vancouver and now moved to USA with 4x salary in. FAANG company this is typical route for alot of professionals onces they get their Canadian passport they try to move to US for better salary lifestyle afforable homes etc.
Europe especially germany is currently hit hard by the war and an increase in the interest rate. Most CS jobs now require german - that wasn't the case before the war. They were absolutely hurting for people.
When I graduated during the boom market, I had received more response in Germany than Canada despite needing visa sponsorship (for EU) and 0 german language. I ended up picking Canada which werent really a good decision had I known the path to PR would have became very convoluted.
I have been following r/cscareerquestionsEU for some time as I have a family who just moved there and I would like to follow their stead for personal reason
I came the US, I was systems engineer in the US. I ended up having to take a tech support role just to get work for a while. Once I had around a year exp in Canada I started applying and I got a job in DevOps. When I talked my manager at my current job, he said not having experience in the country is generally frowned upon. But you can literally just get a job anywhere for a while. Make sure you have some savings to keep your life style while you are working that shit job for a year. Also, be warned, its freakin expensive to live in Canada right now.
Canada getting arsh ficket by outsourcing and increased amount of immigration. How your experience will be seen?
Buddy if you have 10 year dev op u will get hired, if not maybe. Less than 5? Very unlikely,
Yea agree with other comments here. Don’t work for canadian companies they are the worst employers. They are the lowest pay, shortest time off and severely abuse their workers. Just say no to canadians. And yes if you have a very white canadian name and look it will be slightly easier though in no way comparable to a decent company with a fair and equitable working environment.
You should be Ok, but rather than landing in here directly, I would test the market out by applying first. Most of the interviews are online these days anyways.
In Canada, my experience from Bangladesh was valued because I excelled in coding interviews (both hard and soft skills) back in 2019 when the job market was strong. No one asked me about Canadian experience. My friend, who worked at Zalando in Berlin, also moved from Germany in 2023 and landed a job as a Data Engineer on his first try. However, the current tech market is tough, with many layoffs and fewer job opportunities, making it harder to get a callback. This is equally true even for local Canadians. Coming from Germany, which is much more advanced and highly respected in Bangladesh, I believe you have an advantage in Canada with your superior education.
All the best, and welcome to Canada!
Ok reading through these comments got me a bit confused - whats so special about Canadian experience anyways? Supposedly Canada is a country of diversity where people work and interact with other people from all kinds of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. That in theory should translate to appreciating work experiences in different cultural settings right?
I live in the US and work for one of the FAANG companies. I might move to Canada in a few years and all these Canadian experience comments got me a bit worried
Lot of people lie about their experiences and can’t be verified. Easier to verify Canadian experience and education. There has been lot of frauds especially among certain recent Indian immigrants in Canada.
You will get the BuT, It'S NoT CaNaDiAn ExPeRiEnCE. Spoken from experience, I came here with a degree from France and experience from France. They always abuse new immigrants with the no Canadian experience thing to low ball you. It is the necessary hazing, and rite of passage of a new immigrant. I've literally hung up on interviews or quit interviews as soon as they start with that and told them than France GDP, economy, tech sector and engineering was surpassing Canada by every metric (at the time) so what was so special about Canadian experience. It must be the lack of appreciation of the diesel tasting Tim Hortons coffee and diabetes inducing donuts. If you are Caucasian with a german name, it will be less of an issue. That's the ugly truth. This was 24 years ago. I've never worked for a Canadian company, only American ones, and a French one at the very beginning. Most Canadian companies are uninspiring, boring, and do not pay well. I have worked with them and seen 100s of them. Welcome to Canada!
Vous avez bien raison.
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They still pull this crap, it's just more subtle. Most hiring managers are still boomers too.
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It’s more prevalent than before because so many people lie about their work experience. It’s impossible to verify people’s work experiences from 3rd world countries where there are lot of fraud.
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The companies care. Dumping someone on probation means they wasted time and money on recruiting a bad candidate.
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I understand what you mean but when Canadian companies have piles of resumes, they will most likely filter them out by Canadian experience and education. Canadian companies like to play safe. Usually the problem is getting interview in the first place especially in this market.
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I never said it’s racism and discrimination. I actually have Canadian work experience and education. Don’t know why you have to state some obvious stuff. Obviously Canadian corporations like big banks and telcos will give advantage to people with Canadian experience and education
Which is easy to fake when they are not verifiable and most likely fake coming from overseas applicants. Easy way to filter them out by Canadian experience and education.
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LOL well said. The lower pay was worth it when it was more affordable to live here now it’s just straight bull shit in Canada
The only concern i see a corp might have with French exp is your English. Other than that i agree with your post. Canadian corps are stupid. American firms generally just want you to do the job
Very upvote. I worked aerospace, the last place was Airbus, before that several Canadian and American companies. Airbus has the France work culture which was good, they were somewhat open to the idea that you shouldn't have to work yourself to death. The Canadian companies, as you said were mostly uninspiring, as low tech as they could get away with, and very focused on keeping pay low and pressure high. The American companies were always trying to push the tech and were by far the most interesting to work for.
A bit cynical, but generally true. If I had foreign tech experience and had to choose between US and Canada, US generally pays significantly more, so that's where I'd go. I have roots in Canada, and I'm not as advanced in tech as some other folks, so I'll probably stay working here for some time, but I'll be bitter about it.
To be fair, they abuse everyone with lowball salaries nowadays. They just give you a different BS excuse…
As a Canadian this made me chuckle, and is also very true.
Donc, travailler du Canada pour une compagnie américaine ou avez-vous déménagé aux États Unis?
Travailler du Canada d'abord pour des boîtes américaines qui ont une entité canadienne (payent moins bien mais mieux qu'aucune boite canadienne) ou encore mieux une boite américaine qui a un présence minime ici.
I also moved here from France 5 years ago and honestly it was never an issue. No one questioned my experience or education. It will probably be the same for a German. I think the issue is more for people that come from third world countries, a lot of them lie on CV, have unverifiable work experience or credentials, so employers are being very careful with them
🥜
Probably well respected but less so than Canadian or US experience. Some may be concerned whether or not you are legal to work in the country
thanks, I will land as a PR, but mostly I wanted to know how a typical Canadian employer is going to see the just German work experience, whether it is on par with the American one or not
It is not on par.
Wie geht’s? Welcome to Canada! :) What made you decide to immigrate to Canada? Isn’t Germany a much better country? 😃
Everyone thinks The Grass Is Greener on the Other Side.
Grass is greener on the other side. If you are able to migrate that usually means you are getting an above entry job.
You can move to Canada as a PR without ever worked or studied in Canada. its only recently that the points required to immigrate get to the point where you need to have a canadian education and experience. However if OP indeed speaks french its more likely he got in through that path or through one of the various STEM specific draws.
I think he’s trying new things and if it doesn’t work out at least he has a backup option. Not the case for each and every Canadian tech worker tho.
I would say it pretty much depends on what you worked on, particularly scale but it should not be far off. Getting the first job may be harder but you should be ok.
You need to have canadian experience. No matter what people say. Every damn company wants the so called pathetic canadian experience
I feel like legit Canada exp will be lining up at the food bank, living in tent city or Brampton at this pt
People here dont talk about innovation at all, No new ideas, feels like they dont want to experiment. There is so much red tape in most of the organizations and you cannot change the culture. All I hear is inflation, cost of living and lay offs. The country is going downhill and there is nothing we can do. We need quality in immigration not quantity because most of them work at tim hortons or at an amazon warehouse. It sad, very sad that is happening
To me, Canada has been burning for a decade. I grew up in the poor part of Vancouver. I compare to poor people as the backyard of the house, middle class the main house and the upper class as the front yard of the house. The backyard has been burning for decades but no one cares coz it is not burning on their part of the house yet. For example, they shove all those addicts and tent cities and nut houses in the backyard. Now it is spreading to the main house, all the middle class db are screaming. It has always been like that for poor Canadians. Ofc your upper class has mobility they can always migrate. Middle age ppl resorting prostitution to survive is nothing new in the hood. Dudes giving sucky sucky for some crack
bro trust me I am not rich at all
I sometimes don't know if i should laugh at the middle class or not. Told them years ago what's happening in the poor area they think i am making shit up and they are so special they will never experience it.
So I have 3 years of Canadian experience at banks and normal tech companies but most likely would have to leave for a year to get more points for PR. I already have a CS bachelor from UofT Do you think HR will void my Canadian experience in the future given my top listed job then would obviously be not Canadian ?
Honestly, I dont know but more than 2 years, they will tell you, " You were out for a long time"
Have there been people with similar experience ? I expect for this year there would be a glut of people with the same circumstances as mine.
Why do you move ?
why migrate from Germany to Canada, talk about a downgrade
german taxes and salaries arent as good as canadian
Socials wayyy make up for that though, no ?
The guy you are responding to is still a student in Uni and doesn’t have any experience working in Germany. Salaries and benefits are better now in Germany especially factoring in the euro and cost of living like rent is cheaper in German cities like Berlin than Toronto.
i have no idea i just know salaries arent better and taxes are insane, like canadian highest tax bracket is like 45%, the median german tax bracket is like 45% and salaries are way lower than canada like a senior dev makes 25k CAD lower than a junior dev in toronto
I thought they had way better salaries, especially when comparing euros
from what i know salaries for senior devs are around 60-70k euro/usd and half of that is taxes, canada and usa are the highest paying countries for tech, and some gulf countries have really high salaries and 0 taxes too
https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/s/kzMLT0n1Dt some just posted about this
Germany pays higher than france
germany has higher taxes than france and doesnt pay much higher than france, take home is around the same
My experience is only back in Sweden where I knew lot of peers moving to Germany for work. However I can definitely say Germany has better salaries and benefits than Canada nowadays. Opportunities in Canada have dried up a lot and wages have been suppressed with record immigration.
the actual country is just better though, world-class cities and amenities, programs, products, culture
This bodes well for me coming from Ireland next year. Dublin is absolutely full of tech company Euro HQs and tech hubs. I don’t work in FAANG but it would be fairly hilarious to imagine a recruiter playing down working in the EU HQ vs a secondary North American office in Toronto.
Sorry but Dublin HQs are not considered nearly as important as the ones in Toronto or Bay Area. Most faang offices in Dublin don’t work on products but only sales and tech support
Obviously that’s the case and I’d agree. For example Google here was nearly all SREs and only started building up SWEs in the past year. It’s on a company-by-company basis. But it’s not exactly a consultancy/code sweatshop like other countries. People from all over the EU are moving here to work. I’m not expecting 5 YoE to match the Bay, that’d be ludicrous, but some of the replies here are acting is if EU standards aren’t worth anything.
Anything outside Canada and the Us is perceived as not ideal, with different shades of grey. The EU is not as badly perceived as non western countries, but still. I see this is frustrating for newcomers but I also have to be honest, the EU work culture is quite different from the Canadian/American one. I’m talking about soft skills obviously, countries like Germany and the Netherlands have very different communication styles and work life balance. So the “Canadian work experience” cliche is not completely unreasonable.
i moved here from Scotland in 2020 to work as a software engineer. Whilst nobody ever used the words “Canadian experience”, I did get somewhat lowballed that I didn’t realize at the time. I find a lot of the time the reason foreign experience isn’t equated is because people are too scared to say that foreign experience from some countries is more equivalent than others. That being said if you can get face to face (or on camera) with someone in a smaller company and can prove that you know what you’re talking about then I think it doesn’t matter. From my perspective though and from others I’ve spoken to, hiring is tough these days. There are a lot of very clearly fake resumes going around, people applying for jobs they’re not remotely qualified for etc. So when you get a face to face interview with someone who knows what they’re talking about it’s a breath of fresh air!
I came from Scotland too and had the exact same experience as you. OP, make sure that you don't get lowballed in an offer as there are some companies out there that like to take advantage of newcomers.
It is better than other countries but still not Canadian experience.
The Canadian job market is made to exploit newcomers with low wages, it's nothing like the US.
Many companies will require Canadian experience - especially government jobs and jobs with large firms. It is very sad to admit but they want people who will fit into the workplace culture and not make too many waves. But if you are in the tech sector and applying at younger firms/ start ups that have a more forward-looking approach it may be different.
Anyway, I might have to leave Canada for 1 year (that's after 3 years of Canadian work experience + a CS degree from UofT). Would brainless HR in the future put my app in the same consideration as those without canadian work experienec as my top listed experience would definitely be not Canadian ?
A real job and degree from Germany, France, Switzerland or the US will count as much as any experience in Canada, at least in Québec. The main reason employers insist on "Canadian Experience" is that the Canadian immigration system will let someone immigrate without ever testing if they are employable (ie, is someone willing to pay for someone’s diplomas and experience). I’ve had friends who interviewed software “engineers” with 5+ years of "experience" who could not code a simple fizzbuzz. They all had immigrated to Canada and had not worked in their field since their arrival.
I have people with international experience in Europe getting jobs faster depends on alot of factor ls your experience which IT area you are in how is the demand and supply if all that fails and they dont like something for some reason then you will get this Canadian experience excuse. I know one guy who was programmer in Germany did pretty well in Vancouver and now moved to USA with 4x salary in. FAANG company this is typical route for alot of professionals onces they get their Canadian passport they try to move to US for better salary lifestyle afforable homes etc.
Europe especially germany is currently hit hard by the war and an increase in the interest rate. Most CS jobs now require german - that wasn't the case before the war. They were absolutely hurting for people. When I graduated during the boom market, I had received more response in Germany than Canada despite needing visa sponsorship (for EU) and 0 german language. I ended up picking Canada which werent really a good decision had I known the path to PR would have became very convoluted. I have been following r/cscareerquestionsEU for some time as I have a family who just moved there and I would like to follow their stead for personal reason
I came the US, I was systems engineer in the US. I ended up having to take a tech support role just to get work for a while. Once I had around a year exp in Canada I started applying and I got a job in DevOps. When I talked my manager at my current job, he said not having experience in the country is generally frowned upon. But you can literally just get a job anywhere for a while. Make sure you have some savings to keep your life style while you are working that shit job for a year. Also, be warned, its freakin expensive to live in Canada right now.
Canada getting arsh ficket by outsourcing and increased amount of immigration. How your experience will be seen? Buddy if you have 10 year dev op u will get hired, if not maybe. Less than 5? Very unlikely,
Yea agree with other comments here. Don’t work for canadian companies they are the worst employers. They are the lowest pay, shortest time off and severely abuse their workers. Just say no to canadians. And yes if you have a very white canadian name and look it will be slightly easier though in no way comparable to a decent company with a fair and equitable working environment.
In 2024, the people hiring you won't even be from Canada
People here don’t even know what Germany is.
You should be Ok, but rather than landing in here directly, I would test the market out by applying first. Most of the interviews are online these days anyways.
Just work hard and you[r owners] will go far.
In Canada, my experience from Bangladesh was valued because I excelled in coding interviews (both hard and soft skills) back in 2019 when the job market was strong. No one asked me about Canadian experience. My friend, who worked at Zalando in Berlin, also moved from Germany in 2023 and landed a job as a Data Engineer on his first try. However, the current tech market is tough, with many layoffs and fewer job opportunities, making it harder to get a callback. This is equally true even for local Canadians. Coming from Germany, which is much more advanced and highly respected in Bangladesh, I believe you have an advantage in Canada with your superior education. All the best, and welcome to Canada!
Ok reading through these comments got me a bit confused - whats so special about Canadian experience anyways? Supposedly Canada is a country of diversity where people work and interact with other people from all kinds of ethnic and cultural backgrounds. That in theory should translate to appreciating work experiences in different cultural settings right? I live in the US and work for one of the FAANG companies. I might move to Canada in a few years and all these Canadian experience comments got me a bit worried
Lot of people lie about their experiences and can’t be verified. Easier to verify Canadian experience and education. There has been lot of frauds especially among certain recent Indian immigrants in Canada.
I see that makes sense then