Searching for a job in Montreal

So my previous contract was terminated and I've been out of a job for a week. I've remove the dust from my resume (or as we call it here, the Curriculum Vitea ...) and started searching for a new job. It's not an easy task.

First of all, I won't list the headhunters in Montreal because there are just too many. A simple google search will list most if not all. They do most of the dirty work for your, but might not be able to find the more obscure jobs.

Second, The government maintains a job database for anyone who is a citizen and is unemployed: Job Bank - Home
(it included link for the separate database maintained by the government of Quebec)

Next we have to jobs-posting websites (aka Electronic billboards). Since Montreal is a dual-language city, most services were made in one language first and then ported to the other. Which usually means you have twice as many websites, twice as much effort to do, but not twice as many offers.  Most are usually either:

1. An (inter)national website offering tons of jobs posting but little offerings locally, examples includes:
   
1. monster.ca
2. dice.com
3. workopolis.com
2. A local website offering less jobs but dealing mostly with local offering, examples includes:
1. Local professional associations
2. Sites like LesPAC (PAC = Petites annonces classées = Small classifieds ads)
3. Specialty sites like AgentSolo.com
   

Make sure you check both the large and the smaller one as large companies will giving listing only to the very large websites will smaller business will try and get employee via the cheaper method (which usually means the smaller websites). Kinda make sense: If I looking for an employee for a local kindergarten, a national website seems a bit overkill...

But, with this, you only that, you won't see the vast majority of offering there is. The best way to see more, is to go directly on the company's website
Places like:

• CN - Careers
• CAE Careers - Welcome
• Mechtronix Career
• IBM Canada job opportunities.
• etc.

And that is what is taking a lot of my time. Of course, I'm also taking so time off since I hadn't had "real" vacation in over 2 years.

I'll update this post if I find anything interesting to add.

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