Be a Confident Immigrant

Thanks to the "skilled worker and professionals" immigration program of Canada, a lot of well-educated young and middle-age talents around the world have immigrated to Canada. Most of them had very good careers before in their original countries. Some of them were even outstanding experts in certain industries.

But surprisingly, you also find out some of these talents finally working as labour worker in Canada. If you talk to them, they might tell you that they were doctors, lawyers or engineers in their original countries.

Why a well-educated doctor or engineer becomes a labour worker in Canada? It's surprising to hear that, but it does happen very often in reality.

Most of them will tell you because of the language obstacle, they don't dare to apply for the high-profile job in this new country. They worry they will be the loser in the competition with the local people. In fact, they are absolutely wrong to doubt about themselves.

I have a good friend who is Chinese immigrant. Two years ago she said good-bye to her family and good career in China and started her sole adventure in the French-speaking Montreal of Canada. At beginning, she didn't know how to speak French, but she never doubts about her surviving capacity. One week after she arrived in Montreal, she found a temporary job working in English; at the same time she went to a language school to learn French. Just several months after she started learning French, she sent out her CV around to search for a high-profile job in software development industry. Within just 2 weeks, she got a good position in a local French-speaking company and she has been working there happily since that time.

I asked her how she felt about her lucky experience. She told me that she won the job not just because of good luck, more importantly she was strongly confident in herself. In the interview, of course, she couldn't speak French as fluently as the local Quebecois (local people living in Quebec, Canada). But she told herself, she also never expected any foreigner in China could speak Chinese as fluently as her. So besides her beginner-level French, she used a lot of gestures and body languages to communicate with the interviewer. And finally the interviewer was impressed by her confidence and gave her the job.

From the story of my friend, we can learn one thing: As an immigrant, if you want to have a good life in a new country, you should always keep confidence in yourself.