Career Options
Engineers in a strange land |
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Jobboom Publishing |
While you wait...
One of Masmela’s biggest challenges was watching 10 years’ worth of savings dwindle during the 18 months he prepared for his OIQ exams. He recommends that immigrants gather as much information as they can before they arrive. “The cost of living is higher here,” he says.Since the length of time to obtain certification varies from one OIQ applicant to the next, immigrants often need to work while they wait for their licence to come through. Getting that very first job can be tricky. Just ask Anca Grigoras Tismanariu, eng., who trained as a civil engineer. She arrived from Romania in 1990 and became a member of the OIQ in 1993. “When you’re applying for your first job and you write that you’re an engineer, you are overqualified and employers know you’ll be looking for something better,” Tismanariu says. “Some engineers don’t say they’re an engineer, but after that if they find out you’ve hid it, they think maybe you’ll hide other things.” Tismanariu is still living and working in Québec, but she has switched professions and become a paralegal.
In Fuamba’s case, the waiting period proved to be the best time to build contacts for his future. While he applied to qualify for his licence, he worked as a research assistant at the Université de Montréal’s École Polytechnique. He passed the OIQ exams in 2001 and started pounding the pavement. At first he didn’t meet with success, however. “I tried on my own to send out my CV, but it didn’t work,” he says. When he found a job the following year in civil and hydraulic engineering, it was thanks to one of the contacts he had made while working at the École Polytechnique. And in 2005, the university hired him back — this time as an assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Geological and Mining Engineering.
One job, hold the culture shock
Passing the OIQ exams is only part of the integration process, Fuamba points out. This is when the real job hunt begins. “An employer will be more confident if the person has completed some studies here, unfortunately,” he says. “My challenge was to demonstrate that I was as well-trained as people who had gone to school here.”Tismanariu says licensed immigrants sometimes downplay their knowledge and achievements during job interviews. “They don’t know how to highlight their knowledge,” she notes. Now that they are certified to work in their field, they need to realize that “you have to discuss knowledge, the responsibilities you’ve held and your accomplishments.”
Interviewees should also know how to spin their responses to meet North American interests. Fuamba claims that Québec university programs emphasize problem solving, while theory plays a larger role in Congo and Europe. Greater technological advances in North America mean engineers spend less time making calculations and more time interpreting results and analyzing situations.
Another difference is that engineers in developing countries tend to be generalists, while their Canadian counterparts have to show they’ve developed an area of expertise. “Even if I had a specialty in hydraulics, in Congo I had to work in everything. I was asked for solutions in structures, highways, geotechnics and hydraulics,” Fuamba says. In Canada, “a hydraulic engineer is being asked to find solutions in his specialty.”
Finally, Canadian jobs emphasize deadlines and budgets in a way that sometimes does not apply in developing countries. Fuamba remembers how one 10-day site evaluation in Congo became impossible. “On the third day, we were told we couldn’t go because of military manoeuvres,” he says. “This is common there, but when you can’t respect deadlines, you can’t stay within budget.”
If you are prepared to take on different customs and rules, Fuamba stresses that Canada is a land of opportunities. “I continue to believe that if you are entrepreneurial, motivated and you don’t get discouraged, you will get there,” he says brightly. “Each person has their place in this country — and immigrants do too.”
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