FinTech jobs - how to land one before moving

Moving Here
1

For the ones who successfully migrated with a job, how did you guys manage to get a job before migrating? Any recruitment agencies (I am only looking for Full-Time opportunities)? I don’t have a problem getting calls from a lot of US companies but unfortunately couldn’t get even a single call from across the border. (I really dont want to go through H-1B transfer/PERM/I-140 and I am freaking done with it).

I understand all the pros and cons of moving. To summarize why I wanted to leave

  1. PR
  2. Health
  3. Citizenship and parents sponsorship (or supervisa)

I made up my mind to take a small salary cut and pay higher taxes. It doesnt matter whether it is Toronto or Vancouver but biggest bottleneck is just getting a call.

About me: Working for a big bank in tech for the past 15 years. Decent pay. Dont have the option of moving within the bank as my bank’s presence is very limited up north. Have to make a decision on the move soon (latest by March 2021). On H-1B for the past 13 years. Have a Masters from a top notch school (say it is top 10 ranked consistently)

2

What’s your priority date for the I-140?
If you’ve been on H1B for the last 13 years, then I’m guessing it should be close to being current.

3

Do you have PR? If you do your chances are better to get hired with Canadian banks. Most don’t do international hiring.

We were in talks with RBC (largest in Canada) about a year ago to get them to hire on MOV North and they said they only hire local. However I did hear late last year that they have a small team that’s piloting with international hiring under GTS.

Another fintech startup you can look up is Wealthsimple https://jobs.lever.co/wealthsimple

4

Thanks for getting back. Yes, I do have a PR card. I have to move before May 2021 to maintain my PR residency requirements (preferably by March 2021 to have a little leeway), but dont want to move without a job. When you say they prefer hiring locally, I can always go for an interview onsite and move within 2 weeks…

@panditji: My priority date is in 2013, not going to be current any time soon. Even it becomes current tomorrow, by the time I get my green card - it is going to be another 2 years. not too keen on that given my other priorities

5

By hiring local means - Canadian PRs and citizens. When you are applying do mention you hold a PR

6

thanks. I did mention that I am a permanent resident but unfortunately no luck. May be the mistake is giving my US address in the applications.

Do you think going through a recruiter is better?

7

some great tips been shared here including getting a local no

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Ah Ok, 2013 will still take some time, but you never know what may happen after the US Elections.

For tech jobs, I had opened this thread. I was able to find a job using one of the recommendations there.

If you do work with recruiters, make sure that they have experience with setting people up in Canada. Most of the recruiters I talked with were rather clueless about this and the ball didn’t roll forward too much because of that.

9

thanks @panditji and @deepac. @panditji: tbh I dont care about US elections- regardless of what happens, I am prepared to move provided I get a good job. I am prepared to face the possibility that all EB2/EB3 become current and I miss out.

at least one silverlining in the whole covid situation, companies may not really care where you are located going forward.

The recruiters you are talking about, are they here with canadian clients or are they situated in Canada?

10

Recruiters at Terminal.io are based in Canada.

Clients are all American Companies.

I know that Chime is one of the clients and they’re a FinTech company.

11

Also, check out Hacker News https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24038520. Plenty of remote roles by US companies posted directly by employers.

1 Like
12

@migrate2can Just curious if you were able to find a job in FinTech. Thanks.