January 26, 2009
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:
- 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.
Deja-vu! I read this earlier and thought I had left comments…must…remember…to…submit
I think the list is great, and most of your recommendations apply to non-exec position seekers as well. And even if they find their dream job through Peter’s New Jobs or NewJobList.com, the networking to find someone they know inside those companies is even more important to get their resume on top of the pile. If you’re not on LinkedIn or Plaxo, why not?
Peter’s New Jobs is great, but the jobs are one day old. In this job market, you want to be one the first 20 who applies for a job. So, the fact that the jobs are one day old is a good sign that your resume might not be amount the first 20 or so. When it come to hiring, I take the few candidates from the first 20 resumes. I wish I could go through them all, but time is money and I usually get my hands on the people with the right skill sets from the first 20 resumes. Now, thanks for mentioning newjoblist.com, as they seem to be posting jobs every hour or so and they are covering Workopolis and Monster and JobBank as well. Just make sure you are one of the very first one sending your resume out and make sure you tailor each resume for the job you applying for. Also stay away from long cover letters, I simply don’t have time to read the cover, I will look at the resume first, if you don’t have the kills I am looking for, I don’t care how well traveled you are. And don’t send paper resume in, that ship has sailed. Save the trees and use email. One last thing, convert your resume to a PDF file so it keeps it’s format. I throw out the resumes that are not showing up properly on my box with the old version of MS or open office. Hope this helps.
Hi
i suggest adding careerjet to the listings
its a job site