Harmandeep Kaur says her job hunt here in Canada as an international student is not going well.
Kaur is enrolled in her second semester of the course Electrical Engineering at Humber College and has been looking for a job ever since she came here in August 2023.
Harmandeep Kaur, an electrical engineering student at Humber College says she is struggling to find a job. Photo credit: Abhisha Nanda
“It is very hard,” said Kaur. She said life in this economy is already very hard plus she does not want to keep burdening her family back home for money.
“It doesn’t matter if you are allowed to work 20 hours or 40 hours if you don’t have a job,” she said.
According to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, an international student who has a valid work permit is only allowed to work 20 hours per week for their part-time jobs.
But considering the rising cost of living the limit was extended to 40 hours in Nov. 2022 until Dec. 2023. But before this limit could expire it was further extended till April 2024.
“I have a degree but no job,” said Chhavi Kakkar. Kakkar said she graduated from Humber in Dec. 2023 and has been on the job hunt ever since. She holds a degree in Business Management but said it is proving to be of no benefit to her job search.
She said she has been putting forward her resume everywhere but all she hears back is “We are not hiring right now”.
“It’s like there are no jobs here,” she said.
But Loveleen Hanjra, a peer career mentor at Humber College disagreed.
Loveleen Hanjra, a peer mentor at Humber College says she finds that international students lack skills that are necessary to enter the job market. Photo credit: Abhisha Nanda
“It’s not that there are no jobs, the problem is more diverse,” Hanjra said.
She said during her time as a peer mentor she has dealt with several international students looking for jobs and there are a few main reasons why they all fail.
She said many times their resumes or cover letters are not up to Canadian standards which poses the first and foremost problem for them landing a job.
She said students are not confident enough and do not have the required skills to enter the job market.
“I am a professionally trained nail technician,” Rupinder Kaur said.
She said she holds a certificate and a license to practice this job legally but still fails to manage to get clients.
“I get around 2-3 clients a day if I am lucky enough,” said Rupinder, who is not related to Harmandeep Kaur.
She said she knows that she is allowed to work 40 hours per week legally but cannot imagine what will happen in the future when the limit is reduced back to 20 hours.
“Managing in 40 hours is so hard how do they expect us to manage in 20,” Rupinder said while laughing.
Hanjra said Humber College provides all the resources needed to enter the Canadian job market and even offers alumni career counseling services.
“We do get a lot of calls from alumni,” she said.
Loveleen Hanjra says she has been working at Humber College's academic and career success centre for over a year. Photo credit: Abhisha Nanda
She said for such students Humber College offers one-on-one sessions with career coaches and helps the students to find the right type of jobs.
Hanjra said the career coaches have a great network which justifies their high success rate of finding jobs for students.