Generic Migration Advice
 

If you don’t mind po, any advice po how to start with the migration process? Given I’m already 30. Hehe.

Man, if only we had this conversation face-to-face, I’d have smacked this kid on the head. 😂 He sure knows how to make me feel ancient.

It was a very valid question though since that was one of the reasons we took the student pathway. Also, not unlike us, he also had his list of preferred countries.

I thought I’d share some generic advice here since I’ve been asked this question multiple times already. Again, this is GENERIC. I do not know your situation, so please take this with a grain of salt. Also, most of this is based on our Canadian journey, so there will be some peculiarities depending on which country you decide to go for.

Commitment

I told you this was generic! Seriously though, you have to be committed to it. It is a long, often tough, process so you have to be committed to it and approach it with a lot of patience and persistence.

The approval process (from the Embassy) can take between 2-4 months, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You’ll have to collate necessary documents, write letters and take medical exams. Just the first one alone could take a full year.

Save! Save! Save!

Whatever pathway you decide on, you’ll probably need money. The only exception would be getting a job offer overseas. Still, it doesn’t hurt to have some savings lying around.

via GIPHY

Speaking of job offers…

Use Relocation Job Sites

This will depend on your experience and qualifications. I can only speak for tech-specific opportunities since that’s what I spent a lot of time looking into. I recommend VanHack.

Disclaimer: I never got a job offer through them but did get to a couple of interviews and saw some “classmates” get hired. Unfortunately for me, I did not have the needed experience in the latest automation tools. Also, most of my latest experience has been in QA management which was not a hot candidate for relocation jobs.

Other job sites to consider, based on my friend’s experiences, are Linkedin, Indeed and Glassdoor.

Additional Tip: Companies often ask for local (i.e. Canadian) experience. One way to get around this is to look for opportunities to work in cross-cultural teams, whether in multi-national corporations (MNCs) or even remote work with smaller firms.

Common Requirements

Check out the requirements for all your choice countries and start prioritizing them. From our experience, these were the common ones:

• Educational Certification
  • We went with WES (World Education Services).
  • I was lucky that my school had an agreement with them which made this easy for me, so check with your school too.
• Language Proficiency
  • We went with IELTS (International English Language Testing System).
• Show Money
  • I already mentioned this above but it is worth mentioning again even though some pathways may not require it
  • If you have your money stored up in different places, you might want to start slowly consolidating them. Slowly, because you don’t want to raise suspicion if you do large money transfers.

Final Thoughts

I wish you all the best in this adventure but, I also want to warn you that this is NOT going to be an easy journey. Yes, I’m sure you’ve heard of the success and fun stories but there are just as many (if not MORE) sad and hard stories.

We are sharing this not to dishearten you, but to prepare you.

Good luck!!!