Brian Hurley’s Blog

I have received numerous queries from Nortel friends impacted by recent events.   For those asking about where to start and how to approach your job search, here is my advice:

For finding senior leadership roles in the Ottawa region:

• Contact company CEO’s/VP Engineering informally to search for opportunities or leads to leadership role opportunities (if you can get an introduction through a mutual friend that works best).  Places to find lists/directories of local tech companies that are candidates for you to talk to:
  • http://www.ocri.ca/membership/membersearch.cfm
  • http://www.ottawaregion.com/Tech_Database/tig.php
• Introduce yourself to recruiters working to recruit  senior staff in your area of expertise. Note that the recruiters won’t dedicate themselves to finding you a job, but by introducing yourself you can get your name and resume into their internal database and ensure you are considered for any recruiting projects their company may be working on.  
• Contact Managing Partners and Associates you may know (or can get introduced to) in the local Venture Capital world to let them know you are actively looking for a new job, what type of role you are looking for, and why you are the best at what you do – they may know of openings in their portfolio companies they can point you to.

For finding general job opportunities in Ottawa:

• Monitor Monster, Indeed, Workopolis, Hotjobs, Career Builder, Public Service Commission of Canada,  Department of National Defense, individual company careers sections, etc.
• Subscribe to Peter’s New Jobs
• Start networking in organizations such as OCRI, The Ottawa Network, The Code Factory,  Talent First Network , DemoCamp to build contacts and find potential opportunities, particularly related to new company starts.
• Contact everyone you know, let them know you are looking and ask for – pointers, introductions and (as appropriate) their willingness to be a reference
• Use Linkedin, Plaxo and other similar personal networking tools to connect and keep connected with your network

Create your own job:

• Contact OCRI to obtain access to training, mentoring and associated resources
• I suggest you try to bootstrap your business as opposed to searching for Venture Capital, as there is very little Venture Capital available for seed-stage start-ups in Ottawa, or Canada

If anyone has additional suggestions, feel free to add them below.