Job search tips and links
Below are a selection of the links we have found are most useful when searching for a job.
Don't forget the newspapers!
Remember though that up to 80% of jobs are not advertised. It's back to cold calling and speaking to those who could hire you.
Job Search Sites
We don't pretend this is a full list of every site with job postings but we have found these to be the most current and the most useful.
This is the HRDC Job Bank which either you will already know, or will have heard mentioned as an essential place to look for jobs.
On average, depending on the time of the year and the day of the week you will find over 500 new jobs in Vancouver appearing every 48 hours on the Job bank.
There are two important things to note about the Job Bank.
First, you can save searches as live links. This means that if you go to the site and click through many, many links and boxes to find, say, all the carpenter's helpers jobs available today you can save that search as a link. When you return later you will have an updated list; it refreshes automatically. This saves you a lot of time, as, if you save the link on your disc, you are just one click away from all of the jobs in your field.
Second, you may notice some odd ads on the Job Bank sometimes, ones for example that say under 'Hours of Work'
'permanent, temporary, full-time, part-time, day, night, evening, weekend, seasonal'(!)
Well which is it? What do they mean? These sometimes confusing descriptions are because no one actually writes the ads; employers fill out a form online, which is multiple choice and sometimes they will check every box. Just like everyone else, employers too vary in how good they are with computers.
So take confusing or contradictory parts of The Job Bank with a grain of salt, but it is an essential place to visit as part of your job search.
'H careers' is a three section site having one area for Hospitality, one for Retail and one for Restaurant. Some top employers advertise here, including White Spot, Winners, the Cactus Club, Milestones and 'Prism' (KFC, Taco Bell & Pizza Hut)
H Careers for Hospitality, Restaurant, Retail jobs
'Working.CA' is where all (or almost all) newspaper advertisements are posted on line. This site includes many local papers too.
A word of caution though: we ran a competition between finding jobs in the real paper newspaper and this online version.
All 12 jobs in that day's 'Trades and Construction' category we found in the newspaper in 6 seconds; we had read them all 2 minutes later.
Over an hour later we had still found only 9 of the 12 jobs at the online version of the newspaper...........
So don't ignore the advantages of the real newspaper classified ads ..... save yourself a lot of time and check the real newspaper first.
Working.ca: newspaper advertisements online
And this section of the 'Working.ca' site shows featured employers who are currently hiring lots of people - click on the logo of the company or agency to see the jobs available there.
Working.ca: employers who are hiring NOW
The Alliance for Arts and Culture is a local site covering jobs (you guessed it) in the Arts and Culture field in the Lower Mainland.
Some unexpected jobs appear here: a carpenter for the Arts Club Theatre, a driver for Arts Umbrella, as well as the more 'arty' jobs you might expect.
One tip: the jobs are sorted by closing date, not by date posted (added to the list) so you will need to check the whole list each time you visit.
The Alliance for Arts and Culture job listings
The Career Owl site seems to receive postings which don't appear anywhere else. You can sort by location and type of work. It's easy to get around and worth a daily visit.
Email providers
There are many free email services; here are some of the most popular.
You can use these links to go directly to the sign in page for your email if you are not confident at finding it from Google or in the address bar.
Hotmail is the Microsoft free email service.
Yahoo also provides a free email service
Google also offer a free email service called Gmail
Major Local Employers
Many larger employers advertise on their own webpages and not in the papers nor on The Job Bank. Here are some links to the employment or career pages of the larger employer's sites.
Jobs at The Bay, Zellers, Home Outfitters and HBC itself
Sears
Sears employment and career page
Canadian Tire
Safeway
Winners
Shoppers Drug Mart
Rona
Rona Career and Employment pages
Save On Foods
Home Depot Canada
Welfare/Income Assistance advice
This is Povnet an advocacy group with branches across Canada
And here are the local BC pages, with information about welfare, social programs and more
This is the site for the Legal Services Society. They do advocacy work, produce fine booklets on welfare rights, legal aid, landlord and tenant disputes and much more.
And this link takes you to the Legal Services Society publications page.
There are over 90 publications here, all free, many in several languages, and topics range from Family Law, through Legal Aid and even an online version of the green or orange covered 'Your Welfare Rights' booklet you may have seen.
Most of these publications are in 'PDF' format - if you don't know what a 'PDF' is you might need some help opening them.
Legal Services Society list of publications
Employment Standards
Did you know there are Employment Standards for over 30 types of work, from hairdressing to fish farming? Here is the site to find them all, together with several information sheets about where to go if you feel you are not being treated in line with the law.
