# FSWP or Express Entry - Apply now or wait till Jan 2015?



## Neonfish (Aug 19, 2014)

Morning Everyone, 

I have a few questions that I could use all of your collective expertise with. I’m from India with an MBA degree and 17 years of full time education and with 9+ years of Marketing experience in Information Technology companies. Over the last couple of months I’ve been seriously exploring the idea of immigrating to Canada and given the current system and rules have a couple of queries:

From looking at the eligible occupations list, I would qualify under “1123 Professional occupations in advertising, marketing and public relations”. They began accepting applications in May 2014 and it will take me at least a couple of months to take up an IELTS exam and get the other documents ready. So would it be a little late in the game already by then? 

Secondly, I’ve also come to know that the CIC is launching the ‘Express Entry’ program in January 2015 by which Canadian employers will get to take a look at what is available in the pool and pick candidates. I believe this has been developed to expedite the process and to fill out jobs that are in demand. 
My two questions are: 

From an immigrant’s standpoint, is the current FSW program better or should I hold out for the Express Entry to be launched on January 2015? 

Given my occupation code “1123 Professional occupations in advertising, marketing and public relations”, is there much demand for jobs of these type hence making Express Entry a more favored option or would I be better of hedging my bets on the regular FSW program?


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## EVHB (Feb 11, 2008)

Current FSW is much easier as you don't need a job offer, you only need your qualifications and funds.


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## Neonfish (Aug 19, 2014)

Ok that means I better hurry and apply under the FSW at the earliest. Would you have any idea about the prospects of jobs that fall under “1123 Professional occupations in advertising, marketing and public relations”?


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## colchar (Oct 25, 2011)

Neonfish said:


> Ok that means I better hurry and apply under the FSW at the earliest. Would you have any idea about the prospects of jobs that fall under “1123 Professional occupations in advertising, marketing and public relations”?



It depends on where in the country you are looking. I work in communications/public relations and the market is different in every city, region, and province.


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## Neonfish (Aug 19, 2014)

colchar said:


> It depends on where in the country you are looking. I work in communications/public relations and the market is different in every city, region, and province.


Well I'd be looking at Toronto or Vancouver and preferably for Marketing roles in the Information Technology vertical. Coming in with an MBA and about 9 years of experience as a Marketing Manager with enterprise software companies, what is the ballpark remuneration I can expect to begin with?


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## colchar (Oct 25, 2011)

Neonfish said:


> Well I'd be looking at Toronto or Vancouver and preferably for Marketing roles in the Information Technology vertical. Coming in with an MBA and about 9 years of experience as a Marketing Manager with enterprise software companies, what is the ballpark remuneration I can expect to begin with?



Sorry, I've no idea as I don't do the marketing side and don't do anything in that particular sector.

Plus, just like employment prospects, salaries will vary by location. Vancouver is the most expensive city in North America (so more expensive than Los Angeles, New York, etc.) and that will obviously be reflected in the salaries paid. But then one has to figure out whether it is worthwhile if more of one's salary is going to be eaten up by the cost of living than in a less expensive city like Toronto (and don't get me wrong, Toronto is not cheap either!).

You would also have to look at smaller cities where tech companies are located. Take Waterloo Ontario for example - both the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University are located there and, thanks to UWaterloo and spinoff companies like RIM/BlackBerry, there is a significant, and growing, tech sector in that smaller city. I am familiar with Waterloo because I did my B.A. at the University of Waterloo and my M.A. at Wilfrid Laurier University and lived there for ten years, but I am sure there will be other similar sized cities across the country that will have significant tech sectors. Provinces like Saskatchewan and Alberta might have opportunities too because of how well their economies are doing (mainly in the energy sector but there will be plenty of other companies as well). And I knew a couple of people in university who were in tech and they moved to Ottawa to work at companies like Cisco.

So don't limit your search to just Vancouver (especially because of the cost of living) and Toronto, although there _is_ a large metropolitan area surrounding Toronto (known as the GTA and, further out, the Golden Horseshoe) with thousands of companies located in that area.


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## EVHB (Feb 11, 2008)

Wouldn't go for Toronto as in that region you have the highest concentration of universities and colleges and Marketing is a very popular study. So lots of competition for native speakers, which will put you in a big disadvantage. I wouldn't look at the Greater Toronto Area, but at regions with smaller cities.


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## colchar (Oct 25, 2011)

EVHB said:


> Wouldn't go for Toronto as in that region you have the highest concentration of universities and colleges and Marketing is a very popular study. So lots of competition for native speakers, which will put you in a big disadvantage. I wouldn't look at the Greater Toronto Area, but at regions with smaller cities.



While there are more graduates in Toronto/the GTA than in other areas, there are also more job opportunities than in other areas.


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## EVHB (Feb 11, 2008)

That is true. But how much of these opportunities in this domain are given to people who are not trained in Canada, with no Canadian work experience and with lesser English skills?... In Marketing, Advertising and Communications they seem to put a lot of emphasis on these things.


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## Neonfish (Aug 19, 2014)

Valid points all. I used to work for Oracle back in 2006 and we had offices in Mississauga, which I believe is part of the GTA area. 

Without sounding immodest, I'm quite proficient with English and as part of my responsibilities as a Marketing Manager write collateral, blog pieces, video scripts apart from carrying out my marketing responsibilities. This is part of the reason why a number of IT companies are moving their marketing functions to India. 

Having said that I've had a couple of friends living in Toronto who have relayed the same fears as above and indicated that a lot of these jobs aren't naturally given to outsiders. They've indicated that I might have to start over from scratch, take positions that are maybe a level or two below my current scale and compromise on pay at least with my first job. 

The figures they threw out were as low as 40-50k? How far is this true and is this the case even if you have an MBA along with close to a decade of experience with names companies like Oracle and Microsoft?


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## Neonfish (Aug 19, 2014)

Anybody that can provide insights on the salary figures quoted above given the qualifications and the work experience in the area of Marketing?


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## colchar (Oct 25, 2011)

EVHB said:


> That is true. But how much of these opportunities in this domain are given to people who are not trained in Canada, with no Canadian work experience and with lesser English skills?... In Marketing, Advertising and Communications they seem to put a lot of emphasis on these things.



Oh they certainly do, but that will be the same everywhere in the country so it is not exclusive to Toronto.


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## colchar (Oct 25, 2011)

Neonfish said:


> Having said that I've had a couple of friends living in Toronto who have relayed the same fears as above and indicated that a lot of these jobs aren't naturally given to outsiders. They've indicated that I might have to start over from scratch, take positions that are maybe a level or two below my current scale and compromise on pay at least with my first job.


Oh yeah, you definitely will. You are not going to walk into any position that is equivalent to your current one.




> The figures they threw out were as low as 40-50k? How far is this true and is this the case even if you have an MBA along with close to a decade of experience with names companies like Oracle and Microsoft?



Those salaries don't seem too far off the mark for someone starting out here. And while you might have an MBA it is not a Canadian MBA and our education system is different from, and generally more stringent than, those in southeast Asia. Your BA and MBA might not be considered to be equal to Canadian degrees.

As for your experience, none of it is Canadian experience so it won't count as being the same. Advertising/marketing are different here than in India and you will have no exposure to the way things are done here (practices, standards, etc., etc., etc.), either professionally nor through being exposed to North American style marketing due to living here.


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## Neonfish (Aug 19, 2014)

colchar said:


> Oh yeah, you definitely will. You are not going to walk into any position that is equivalent to your current one.
> 
> Those salaries don't seem too far off the mark for someone starting out here. And while you might have an MBA it is not a Canadian MBA and our education system is different from, and generally more stringent than, those in southeast Asia. Your BA and MBA might not be considered to be equal to Canadian degrees.
> 
> As for your experience, none of it is Canadian experience so it won't count as being the same. Advertising/marketing are different here than in India and you will have no exposure to the way things are done here (practices, standards, etc., etc., etc.), either professionally nor through being exposed to North American style marketing due to living here.


I do realize what you are saying especially about the degrees. However from a work experience standpoint because I have worked with Global Software companies, my area of focus has always been NA and EMEA. During my time at Oracle I focused extensively on US and Canada and in fact had a virtual team based out of Mississauga. As part of my current role as well, I'm the Marketing Manager for a solution at a Global Level with my main markets being North America and Europe. 

Given all this I was hoping that prospective employers would be able to view my work experience for what it is and not paint it with the same 'Not Canada' brush. But I certainly understand where you are coming from and how people are expected to start over at least in some aspects. 

All things considered it might not be a bad idea to see if I can engineer an internal transfer with my present company so that I'm building on what I already have instead of starting completely afresh.


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## EVHB (Feb 11, 2008)

Neonfish said:


> I do realize what you are saying especially about the degrees. However from a work experience standpoint because I have worked with Global Software companies, my area of focus has always been NA and EMEA.


Doesn't matter that much in Canada. Example: a Global Corporate IT Director for one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the US, but he was stationed in Europe and flew back-and-forth between Europe and US. Had a team of 65 members in EMEA and US (and 5 of them in Canada, lol!). Came to Canada with lots of contacts in his field already. But he had to step down a lot (Senior Manager!), lost almost half of his yearly income. After a year became Director, but still isn't where he would have been (VP IT) if he had stayed in Europe or had relocated to US. Seriously, Canada puts a lot of emphasis on Canadian Experience. At Senior Level, they say it takes on average 7 years before you are back at the level you were before you moved to Canada... (sorry, this probably isn't what you wanted to hear)


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## colchar (Oct 25, 2011)

Neonfish said:


> I do realize what you are saying especially about the degrees. However from a work experience standpoint because I have worked with Global Software companies, my area of focus has always been NA and EMEA. During my time at Oracle I focused extensively on US and Canada and in fact had a virtual team based out of Mississauga. As part of my current role as well, I'm the Marketing Manager for a solution at a Global Level with my main markets being North America and Europe.



That _might_ make a difference but it really depends on which companies you are applying to and their internal rules. Logically, your experience should count as being Canadian(ish) but reality _might_ be different. If you were to apply to say, Microsoft, then I doubt there would be any issues with your experience. But if you were to apply to say, Cisco, they might look at your experience differently.





> All things considered it might not be a bad idea to see if I can engineer an internal transfer with my present company so that I'm building on what I already have instead of starting completely afresh.



That would be the ideal way to go so long as they could get the position approved by the government.


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## dheeraj_gupta (Aug 25, 2014)

Hi,

While reading your post i read about some "express entry" program. Can you elaborate more on it as I have also applied for canadian PR.

Thanks


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## colchar (Oct 25, 2011)

dheeraj_gupta said:


> Hi,
> 
> While reading your post i read about some "express entry" program. Can you elaborate more on it as I have also applied for canadian PR.
> 
> Thanks



Why not start your own thread?


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