Going Through A Supported Job Program Vs Independent Search

If you haven’t come across this blog before, me and my fiance are going to be moving to Whistler in Canada for 6 or so months on the International Experience Canada (IEC), a working holiday visa. For us to find a job, we had two options; go through a supported program to help us find work or find work independently. After a lot of thought, we decided to go with the first option and signed up to The Working Holiday Club. It’s not for everyone though, so thought I’d put together a pros and cons list to hopefully help anyone in the same situation:

Going Through A Supported Job Program

Pros                                                                                                      

– You can guarantee a job before leaving the country

– Less stressful, more support

– Meet a network of people

– Perfect if you’re travelling in a group or as a couple

Cons

– It costs to go through a program

– Essentially paying a lot of money just for a job

– More potential of ‘scams’ – depending on reputability of provider

5 Months to Go

I probably shouldn’t be starting a countdown til we go to Canada already, but now we’re in June it means it’s now just less than 5 months! It’s not actually that far away and it’s literally all I’m thinking about. As I said in my last post, we’ve signed up The Working Holiday Club to sort our jobs before we go, and I had my pre-screen interview by them last week. Basically, they just needed to check that I meet the criteria and find out what job I wanted to go for and they have to agree too before we go for an interview with Whistler Blackcomb in London in July.

I’d decided I didn’t want to do bar or retail work as I’m leaving a job I love in Marketing to do this, so I don’t want to completely lose 6-ish months of experience in the industry. A job as a Ski & Snowboard Sales Host seemed to fit the bill and The Working Holiday Club thought I’d be good for that job (he described it as one of the only ‘grown up’ jobs you can do on the mountain) so that’s the job I’m going to be going for. The job sounds pretty good, though I’m not actually too sure what it entails but it’s an office job on the mountain where I’ll be working 4 10 hour shifts a week, so have 3 days off a week – perfect!

The Planning Starts Now

I’ve been a little distracted from starting to plan our trip recently due to football. I’m a Bradford City fan and have just had the most amazing season which has been a huge distraction to anything else. For anyone interested in reading about this, check out my other blog here

Now the football season has officially finished, we can really start to plan our trip. If you’re new to my blog we’re planning on going to Whistler to do a working season there from November – April ish. Then onto America for 3-4 weeks to do a road trip then we’re planning on popping down to Brazil to the World Cup. It’s a dream trip that I still can’t believe we’re doing, especially since we’ve been talking about going to Canada for years. However…. we still have it pretty much all to plan and we seem to keep adding more and more to our to do list.

So far, we’ve signed up to The Working Holiday Club to get our jobs in Whistler sorted before we go. We know these job programs are a little bit of a con as you’re paying someone to get you an interview for job, however with neither having us worked a season before and are not able to go out until just before the season started, we didn’t want to risk not being able to find a job. We decided we’d rather pay to have the peace of mind, especially with two of us needing to find work. If I was going on my own I don’t think I’d have signed up to a program but at least this way we know we’re both guaranteed a job before we fly out. I’ve got my initial phone interview with a guy at the Working Holiday Club next week, then they arrange an interview with the Whistler mountain team in London in July. So in July we should know what jobs we’ll be doing and when we’ll be starting.

Visa – Check

Job – Check-ish (as long as I don’t attack anyone in my interview, I should be okay…)

Accomodation in Whistler – Check (going to live in the staff housing, but will see how that goes!)

Still to sort:

– Insurance

– Flights to Canada (probably going to go to Vancouver first)

– Accommodation in Vancouver

– Canadian Bank Account

– USA Road Trip Itinerary

– Flights from USA to Brazil

– World Cup Tickets

– Winter Clothes – Not sure whether to buy in Canada or here in the UK before hand

 

The International Experience Canada (IEC) Process

International Experience Canada (IEC) is a program available to UK (and other countries) residents aged between 18-30, allowing you to get a one year work visa. There are 5,350 places available and last year they didn’t all go until May, about 6 months after the applications opened. This year was the only year the whole application process was done online, so was expected to have some bumps in the process. The process was done in two stages:

Stage 1 – IEC Application to determine program eligibility and sending of payment

Stage 2 – CIC Application to determine whether you get issued your visa or not

The program was expected to open in December, then January. January came and the website changed to say it would be opening soon. IEC finally announced the opening of the first round of the visas on Valentines Day at about 5pm. I was still at work when I saw the email to say it was open. I rushed out of work at 5.30, made a frantic phone calls to Kyle telling him to log on and fill in all our details (then another one to make sure he was doing it right!). I’ve never rushed so much to make sure I got my bus and the next train so I was home as early as I could then ran from the train station to make sure we’d reserve our place in the first round. I even forgot to get a valentines day card (soz Kyle!). We submitted both our applications by about 7, luckily as by 8pm the first 1,000 places were filled. The next two quotas filled just as quick, so we really were luckily to get our place in the first.

Canada Work Visa Received!

So, last week I was told over the phone by an immigration worker at CIC that my visa had been accepted. Apparently it was accepted on 17th March (over a month ago and just 2 weeks after I sent it). Due to a technical fault I was totally unaware of this until I spoke to the woman at CIC.

Well, I have now received my actual POE letter of introduction to Canada, so I don’t need to just take the word of the immigration worker as I can now see it for myself! So exciting actually seeing I’ve been accepted and have until 17/04/2014 to activate my work visa – it makes it all seem real. We are actually doing this, aaarrgggh!

My official confirmation of my working visa approval!

Dear Visa…. Where Are You?!

So, it’s been 37 days since I submitted my CIC application for the IEC work visa. Haven’t heard a peep out of them, not a single reply to any of my messages. I wouldn’t mind, as they do have up to 6 weeks to process the CIC part of the application, but so many people who submitted way after me (and a lot of others) have already got their LOI/POE. At least Kyle is one of the ones who has is and I couldn’t have been happier to see his sitting in his account. I had almost given up hope on a working ski season in Canada, as he had driving offences I really thought it would be declined… but I was wrong. Never been so happy to be wrong haha.

We won’t be heading until October/November, so we’re not in a rush to get my visa but the uncertainty of not knowing what’s going on is killing me! Yes, I might not have family or partner in Canada that I need to get my work visa to be able to go over, like a lot of people I’ve been speaking to are. But, there is a lot riding on this for us and a hell of a lot of things for us to do:

The Story So Far

Hello! Welcome to Our North America Travel Adventure 🙂

First off we is me (Laura) and my fiance Kyle who are soon to be moving to Canada for an adventure that is new to us both.

We have always enjoyed a holiday or two and going to new places, but we’ve always craved going away for a little longer. The backpacking travelling thing had never really appealed to us and there are different places that appeal to us both, so planning a trip would be a bit of a nightmare! So, we quickly scraped the idea of travelling. We had always talked about doing a ski season, but neither of us really wanted to do one in Europe and be a chalet couple and work stupidly long hours. So, what was the other alternative? You guessed it…. Canada!

We’d talked about doing a ski season in Canada a long time ago, but decided against it with Kyle being in a stable job and me deciding I wanted to get a grown up job straight after uni. However, an offer of a career break for Kyle and me thinking why the hell not – we decided to go for it!