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Here are 10 unique things you can do to find a job in Canada, that other new immigrants to Canada do not do, because there is nobody out there that teaches this stuff:#1 Record an elevator pitch video on your mobile phoneAs a new immigrant, employers will have an unconscious bias against your communication skills, which is a soft skill you’d find as a requirement in almost every job description.If you have a video elevator pitch, your communication skills and vocabulary will be exposed, and squash any negative biases or assumptions the employer or recruiter may have made about you.If you have trouble memorizing words then use a teleprompter app like Video Teleprompter Premium.Create a great 30–45 second elevator pitch, load it up on YouTube, and add it to your LinkedIn profile. Link to it from your emails to hiring managers and recruiters as well.Research how to do good elevator pitches. Don’t assume you know how.#2 Anglicize/Shorten your nameThis is a sensitive topic, but worth mentioning as well. The University of Toronto and Ryerson University did a study that found job seekers with non-anglicized names received 20–40 percent less callbacks, compared to their Anglo-named counterparts with the exact same qualifications.This is less of a problem in large corporate organizations in Canada where diversity and inclusion is more actively practiced.If you have an ethnic name that is really long and you believe will be challenging for a Canadian to pronounce, consider shortening it for your resumé and LinkedIn profile.#3 Grow you network to 25As a new immigrant you don’t have a large network. And that’s a problem.Because according to Business Council of Canada that surveyed 90 large sector Canadian employers, 90% of them source candidates from referrals.According to author Orville Pierson in his book “Highly Effective Job Search” it takes, on average, 25 network connections to get the job you want.These 25 people are not recruiters. They are people who have the power and authority to hire you.So make a list of 10–15 companies you want to target in Canada, and used a LinkedIn filtered search by company and job title, and the premium account to InMail these people directly.Don’t ask for jobs.Just stay in touch and offer value to them. If they accept your connection request you don’t need to sacrifice an InMail credit.If they respond to your InMail, you get your credit back.Think of the popular marketing concept of “The Rule of 7”. Someone needs to see an ad 7 times before they consider buying your brand.If you must measure the progress of your job search, let it not be the the number of jobs you apply for online everyday. Let it be about sending 175 (25x7) outreach messages to your network during a sensible course of time.“Hellos” and “Hope you are doing well” messages don’t count. It must be something that is of value to the recipient.#4 Write cover letters the right wayRecruiters and managers will tell you they ignore reading cover letters.That’s because everyone usually sucks at writing cover letters.According to Job Search expert Liz Ryan from Human Workplace, a cover letter should read like a business pain letter.The focus should be about what business pain you believe your future manager is feeling right now, and how you’ve solved that pain in the past.Every job exists because there is a pain or problem that needs fixing.Research about the best way to write cover letters instead of assuming you know how.#5 Post your resumé and cover letter directly to hiring managersThe postal service is alive and well in Canada, and often underestimated.The benefit of using it is, unlike email, your letters will never be ignored.Head to Shopper’s Drug Mart, and invest in stamps, envelopes.Then those 25 contacts you discovered? Post them your resumé and cover letter.That’s the easy part.If you want to make good impressions, you have to take the trouble to research about the company and person, and create a customized cover letter to each of them.I know it takes a lot of effort. Well, how badly do you want that first job in Canada?#6 Read this book “20 Minute Networking Meeting” by Nathan PerezMany immigrants don’t have a network in Canada.But they make so many mistakes when trying to build that network, even though they’ve been network building their whole lives in their home country.And the reason is because they have never networked with a purpose.This short book gives you the details on how to network with purpose and achieve the ultimate goal of meeting with professional Canadians in person.#7 Search YouTube for Dr. Lionel LarocheYou need to understand how Canadian work culture is different from your home country.Communication, leadership, feedback, meetings, punctuality are just some of the areas in which Canada is different to the rest of the world, especially when compared to Asia and the middle east.Dr. Lionel Laroche specializes in Canadian Work culture and how it relates to immigrants.Watch his videos and reflect on how it relates back to how you present yourself in the interview.His talks are both enlightening and entertaining.#8 Gain Canadian Experience the RIGHT wayMany will tell you to volunteer your time.That’s the wrong advice!If you’re looking for a job in accounting, hiring managers are not going to care that you’ve gotten “volunteer experience” packaging food with meals on wheels or greeting visitor and handing out fliers at some random organization.If you want to volunteer to give back to the community, good for you. Give your time generously anywhere.But if your agenda is to get a full-time job, that’s different story altogether.You’re better off volunteering your time at events where you are surrounded by people who have the power and authority to hire you. Join an association in your field in Canada and contact the board of directors directly and make yourself available to them for volunteer work.Yes it’s an investment to join an association. But if it ends your job search sooner, or gets you a job that pay you $10K more per year, it’s well worth the investment#9 Read as many job descriptions for your target job title as you canBy default, every new immigrant that I’ve worked with makes the mistake of brain dumping their past experiences on to their resumé.Remember it’s not about what you did in the past.It’s about what your future employer needs and how you translate your past experience to those needs.Read job descriptions for your target job title. As many as you can. And when you’re done, read some more.Notice trends in requirements and qualifications, industry language in Canadian terms and any gaps you find.Make sure your resumé speaks to those trends.Fill those gaps if you have them.And after doing this research, then decide if you need more education. Don’t waste your time and money pursuing more education just because you want to keep yourself busy and feel productive.Education is not valued in North America as much as it is in Asia.If the job description does not mention a Master’s degree or a certification for your target job title, don’t bother getting one if your sole purpose of pursuing it is to improve your chances of getting your first job.#10 Make sure your resumé has these words in itAccording to a study done by Career Builder, these are the most popular words to use on a resumé. Make sure you use them in your experience section:AchievedImprovedTrained/MentoredManagedCreatedResolvedVolunteeredInfluencedIncreased/DecreasedIdeasClick here to download a high-converting Canadian resumé templateGood luck and welcome to Canada!

Today, a cover letter, like your resume, is not typically hard copy mailed to an employer. In fact, it may not be a letter at all. The savviest job seekers still manage to include its modern equivalent somewhere in the body of an email message or an online job application. Someone who takes the time and effort to do this will have a leg up. You could also check Jolt courses they might be of tremendous help!Here are tips for writing a cover letter that will convince hiring managers and HR professionals to interview you.Don't just rehash your resumeWhat's the first thing to know about how to write a cover letter? Your words should do more than restate salient details from your resume. Check out this brief checklist of important functions of a cover letter:Draw attention to specific skills and experiences that make you an ideal candidate.Mention other relevant skills your resume may not illustrate.Explain why you would love to have the job in question.Show you've done research on the company, its mission, and key leadership.Tailor your cover letter to a specific jobDon’t use a one-size-fits-all cover letter template for all the positions you apply for. If you do, you’re missing the point: Only a letter that’s targeted to the job at hand will make a positive impression. Write a cover letter employers can't ignore by tying it to the elements of the job that match your unique skills and experience. What are they asking for that you’re especially good at? Those are the points to stress when writing a cover letter.Just as important, gather facts and figures that support your claims. For example, if you're applying for a managerial role, mention the size of teams and budgets you’ve managed. If it’s a sales role, describe specific sales goals you've achieved.In addition to highlighting your talents, you can further personalize your cover letter by demonstrating your familiarity with the specific industry, employer, and type of position.Be proud of your past accomplishmentsCompanies want confident employees who love their work. They know these are the people who tend to perform better, serve as stronger team members, and have greater potential to grow along with the business. Don’t hesitate to brag a little about your most pertinent achievements.Keep it briefThe barrage of information coming at all of us today has created attention spans that are shorter than ever before. Cover letters are no exception. Managers are often inundated with applications, so the economy of words matters. Keep your cover letter to no more than one page if printed. Short is sweet.Address the hiring manager personallyJust as you personalize your resume to the role, you should also address the cover letter to the person actually hiring for the position. If it’s not spelled out in the job posting, call the employer's main phone number and ask for the name and title of the hiring manager. If you’re still in school or just out, your career services office may be able to help you identify the right contact at a company.Use keywords from the job descriptionMany employers use resume-filtering software that scans for keywords and evaluates how closely resumes and cover letters match the preferred skills and experience. That means your cover letter should incorporate key phrases you've identified in the job description — if they honestly match with your background and strengths. During the writing process, carefully review the job ad for the type of degree required, the number of years' experience needed, specified software skills, organization and communication abilities, and project management background.

3 years ago I couldn’t get a client on Upwork to save my life.I’d tried every method out there, from writing “professional” cover letters to creating videos for each individual client…But after wasting countless hours and getting no results, I knew something had to change.At first, I blamed it on Upwork and all the “cheap” clients on there…But seeing how I’d already failed at every other type of marketing (i.e. content marketing, paid advertising, etc.) — I didn’t know where else to turn.This led me onto a rabbit hole of research, and after days of combing through information, then weeks of testing…I’d finally found a proven strategy that started landing me clients right away, in various industries:Which is what I’m going to share with you today.Our exampleAs with every “how-to” article I write, I’ve learned it always works best when we have an example we can relate to, so let’s use this job posting for our example today.As you can see, this job posting is looking for somebody who can create a vehicle that’ll capture email leads, that way they can email them when their crowdfunding campaign is ready.And if you’re not familiar with this process, they’re essentially looking for somebody who can setup a landing page that converts like crazy, then drive traffic to that landing with Facebook Ads — which happens to be one of my primary specialties.Anyway, now that we have our job posting in front of us and know this is something we can do, let’s jump into the actual proposal.Step #1 — EngagementSo the first thing you want to do with any proposal is simply making sure you get their attention right away.This is extremely important in a crowded marketplace, especially when there’s 20+ other freelancers who are also competing for their attention…And the best part is that it’s really not that hard to do.As sad as it sounds, simply showing the client that you read their job posting is enough to stand out on Upwork anymore (as most freelancers use template proposals)…So to start things off, I always just acknowledge that I read their job posting.There’s a few ways to do this, but in this case, I’d start off with:Hey there, I see you’re looking for somebody to create a highly-converting landing page…One that’ll not only capture leads right away and keep your ad costs low, but also build a list of targeted leads for your upcoming crowdfunding campaign.Why this works so well:When clients look at the list of applicants, they only see the first sentence of a proposal…So to start things off, it’s always important to acknowledge that you see what they’re looking for.This should be enough to get them to click on your proposal, then after they do, they’ll immediately read the second sentence…Which is essentially showing them that you know EXACTLY what they’re looking for.I guess you could look at this as a form of mindreading, where you’re acknowledging the underlying request…But either way, this is always enough to grab their attention and that’s when I jump into:Step #2 — AuthorityI’m not sure how familiar you are with “ethical persuasion”, but one of the most important parts of sales (i.e. ethical persuasion) is showing that you know what you’re doing.There’s always more than one way to do this, but either way, in the authority section — it’s important to display your expertise.This is also the one area where a lot of people mess up, even if they’re aware of this concept…As they think it’s a time where they need to talk themselves up, but as the first rule of marketing goes…Clients don’t care about you, they care about what you can do for them.So how do you do this?By simply sharing a portfolio item that’s relevant to their job.The only thing to remember with this is that there’s two types of “portfolios” in the freelance world, and that’s:Results based, orNon-results basedNow I know the difference looks pretty straigthforward on the surface, and it really is, but you’d be surprised how many people confuse this…So let’s give a quick overview on the two.When it comes to results based, that’s going to include any skill where the client measures results over cosmetics or job completion.To give you an example of this, when I first started as a landing page copywriter…I had zero clients or experience under my belt, so I simply built a landing page of my own, drove traffic to that page, took a screenshot of my results:Put it on a Google Doc, shared it with the client — and had my first landing page gig a few days later.I’ll actually share that with you later on, but before we get there, the other form of portfolio is “non-results” based…And that’s going to contain everything that can’t be directly measured.A few examples of this would be blog articles (as the client just wants to see your writing style), ebook covers (as they want to see design your design capabilities) or Wordpress websites (as they want to see how advanced you are).To give you an example of this, I actually won my first content writing job without any experience, education or client reviews…By simply writing a 637 word article on a Google Doc, then sharing it with the client and landing my first role a few days later.Okay, so now that’s all out of the way, let’s jump back into our current example.As I explained a second ago, this type of skill is always going to be results based, so I’m going to take a couple screenshot of my results, then share them in the proposal — as shown below:Hey there, I see you’re looking for somebody who can create a highly-converting landing page…One that’ll not only capture leads right away and keep your ad costs low, but also build a list of targeted leads for your upcoming crowdfunding campaign.I understand exactly what you’re looking for, and to give you an example of my previous results — here’s a few similar campaigns that I’ve recently completed:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wfcu6GOrFOeDKtq266LRaBU1rq_OKI6EyCWQkmD6Y-8/edit?usp=sharingWhy this works so well:As you can see, I spend zero time bragging myself up and instead, let the results speak for themselves.This works well for many reasons, like how I’m not bragging myself up…But it also works well as I’m keeping the proposal short and to the point.Instead of wasting their time with my credentials, experience and how amazing I am..I simply give them 2 results to look at, and trust me, that’s all they really want to see.Bonus hint: Always give them a URL that leads to 1 (maybe 2) portfolio items. I’ve seen a lot of freelancers do this but instead of giving 1–2 relevant items, they give them their entire portfolio…And that’s counter intuitive to our goal right now, as clients don’t want to search through an entire portfolio — which will likely make them run away.Okay, so now that we have that completed…It’s time to:Step #3 — Finish the proposalSo this is quite possibly the best advice I can give you, as very few freelancers actually understand this…But whenever you’re contacting somebody for the first time, you NEVER want to go for the sale right away.No matter how helpful you’re trying to be or how good your intentions are, if you don’t warm up to the client first, they’ll always (subconsciously) view sales as a low-guard threat…So the purpose of a cover letter should be one thing and one thing only, getting them to respond.This is why you always want to end with a question, as that’s what’s most likely going to get them to respond…And that part is self-explanatory, but here’s a few rules you want to follow:Make sure the question prompts a “knee-jerk” response. In other words, you don’t want to ask something that’s way too difficult (i.e. do you plan on using lookalike audiences followed up with retargeting ads and building a funnel?), but at the same time — you don’t want to ask something that’s blatantly obvious (so are you going to do this with a landing page?)When possible, ask a question that’s relevant to their product or service. People love talking about themselvesIf you can get them on a phone call, that always works best. I’d say I honestly close 90% of clients that I get on the phone, but if you’re an international freelancer — I realize that’s not always possibleLastly, if you can do this in a way that shows your expertise — then that’s always going to work best (I’ll show you this in a sec)…So for our example, there’s actually a lot of ways we can do this, but in this case — I’d put:Hey there, I see you’re looking for somebody who can create a highly-converting landing page…One that’ll not only capture leads right away and keep your ad costs low, but also build a list of targeted leads for your upcoming crowdfunding campaign.I understand exactly what you’re looking for, and to give you an example of my previous results — here’s a few similar campaigns that I’ve recently completed:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wfcu6GOrFOeDKtq266LRaBU1rq_OKI6EyCWQkmD6Y-8/edit?usp=sharingAnd you did a good job of explaining the role, but just curious — are you using a lead nurturing funnel right after the landing page, or are you simply building an audience so you can send out an email when the campaign is live?Why this works so well:It’s essentially a form of “hidden authority”, as we’re showing them we understand what happens after the email address is collected as well.This will either:Give us the opportunity for more work (i.e. creating the funnel), orAt least show them that we completely understand the project, and skyrocket our chances of landing the roleThen after this happens, the client will generally respond with some form of answer…And after that, they’ll usually ask how long you think it’ll take you to complete this role (if they posted the job as hourly, and if so, that honestly happens 90% of the time).Then once they do, just tell them your honest answer…But here’s the key, offer to mitigate their concerns with a fixed price contract.This works extremely well as nobody likes the uncertainty of hourly billing, and even though it won’t benefit you much in the beginning stages of your freelance career…Once you get some experience under your belt and turn projects around 2x as quick, then those contracts get profitable — real quick.To recap:Always start your proposals with engagement. This doesn’t need to be too complex, just tell them you read their job posting and essentially repeat what they’re looking forThe next step is always authority, and with this step — you want to show them you know what you’re doing. Again, this doesn’t need to be complicated as you really just want to share a relevant portfolio item (or results)End the proposal with a question, as you want them to respond (main goal of the cover letter)Once they’ve responded, that’s when the sales starts…and the good news with this is that since they’ve already responded to you, then your chances of landing the job has already skyrocketedLong story short…Getting clients on Upwork really isn’t that hard, you just have to understand strategies that work.Trust me, as somebody who’s landed jobs in a bunch of different categories:I can assure you, these principles work for any skill.P.S. Also, if you’d like to see how I now use these same fundamentals - to land freelance clients with automation…Then check this out.