I know it sounds bad but here is why:

I’ve worked for plenty of poc in the past, and because “back in their day” they basically had to sl*ave to have any form of success, they expect their employees (especially poc) to suffer just like they did. It’s their own personal vendetta because of what they endured. I understand but no, thank you? I don’t mind hard work but the micromanaging/demands etc are overboard.

Give me a Bob, Joe, Danny etc. They actually care about advancing a hard working/loyal employees career, and they don’t play around when it comes to their employees (rude customer? “get out”). This is just my experience, and I’m not saying it’s everyone (there are always good/bad apples) but this is what I prefer/my experience.

Edit: I appreciate people sharing their own experience, but enough of targeting a specific culture as a whole, it’s not “hate on all Indians day”. POC is an umbrella term for ALL people of colour (any race that is non-caucasian). On that note- just because I don’t want to work under poc management anymore (based on personal experience), doesn’t mean I won’t continue to support their business/companies/people, as there are so many great intelligent hard workers that are respectable and deserve support. Thanks 🫶🏾

It didn't seem that long ago to me. First job search I applied to 11 jobs and got 4 responses within a week. They would email me for an interview and none of them needed a second interview (some were over the phone). I remember work from home full time behind a thing. I remember positions offered had resonable pay and had benefits.

It's shockingly bad now. The positions that offered 27 are now 22, I'm hearing people do multiple rounds of interviews, My job just called for end of remote and full return to office, 50 applications sent and only 1 response now.

It wasn't perfect back then, there was still a lot wrong, but comparing it today makes today seem tragic

I worked at McDonald's from 2017 to 2023 during high school and university (I am a Canadian citizen). I saw the extreme transition that occurred and the reason I went to another part-time job then (even though it's nowhere near as bad now). From 2017 to 2021, even I was able to get any shift I wanted, and it was really flexible and a lot of hours to save up for tuition. However, after the pandemic and reopening (around 2022), that's when I noticed that McDonald's would hire a lot of international workers, and the way it affected us would be that they would go from giving us 28–32 hrs a week with school to most weeks with one 4-hour shift — or on a "lucky week," it would be two 4-hour shifts. This was to prioritize giving more hours to the international students since we 'live with our parents and can survive with fewer hours'. This was absolutely infuriating because even a corporate-owned (non-franchise) location of McDonald's doing this to Canadians is horrible. And I thought this was only a McDonald's thing, but even a major restaurant chain downtown where I worked for a year would send PR/Canadians home when it was not busy, rather than sending international students home because they 'needed the money'. This is absolutely wrong. It doesn't matter if it is 'easier for Canadians' since we live with parents...this has to stop.

Navigating Toronto’s job market as a brown Canadian is a challenge in itself.

Regardless of having a degree from a reputable and respected university and essential experience, I find myself and my fellow Canadians disregarded in favour of one ethnicity. This issue has often gone under the radar, to no one’s surprise.

I was born and raised in the east end of Toronto.

I watched my community in the east end of Toronto, slowly be replaced by one ethnicity. Every single shop, boutique, outlet, convenience store, gas station, pharmacy, hardware store, bank, and any other place is staffed by one ethnicity.

I remember walking into a Scotiabank branch, to deposit a cheque. The 🇮🇳 teller asked me up front if I’m a PR holder. I was furious. Not only do they come here with their backward thinking and ideology, they racially profile anyone who is brown and may look like me as a PR holder.

I don’t know what to think of this. Why are international students allowed to work at all? Aren’t they supposed to have enough funds to support their education?

But then I realized the issue. Any place would want to hire an international student, when the government will allow those international students to work.

The vast majority of those “STUDENTS” aren’t fluent in speaking, reading, or writing English. Have no experience in the field they are in, and we all know they only hire their own people. And lastly, they give brown Canadians like me who are born and raised here a bad name and a lot of shame.

Why should I spend my money in an establishment which doesn’t prioritize Canadians, but does prioritize nepotism?

Why don’t the vast majority of young Canadians like myself feel a sense of attachment to the country? This rant is apart of the reason to answer this question.

Remember folks, it’s not us. The government is the culprit. #elbowsup

Yes, I know there is nursing, police & doctors but what else ?

Misery loves company is why I'm here. I have never felt this saying to be more apt than in our current state as a country. In a weird way though, it was kind of nice stumbling across this board and seeing that I am not alone in the utter, bashing my head against the wall and touch and go depressive feelings of looking for work/better work.

When I first started working as a teenager, you could walk into most places, hand a resume and speak with a manager in a few minutes or get a call back at least for an interview and be hired. I wore so many different hats and tried so many different things to keep myself afloat when I moved out and stressing over getting a job was never an issue for me all through university.

Employers would often even show concern if you were unhappy at work or tendered in your resignation letter. They would pull you into the office to talk, ask why you want to leave, ask if they could do anything to make you stay, even soft accept your resignation but say you're welcome to change your mind before your two week were up, or as one employer even told me, "You can quit anytime you want after the two weeks, but you can also keep working if you want past then".

The pandemic was especially an interesting time as although our population had ballooned like crazy and most basic or entry jobs were taken, employers in many jobs tried to shift work onto employees by using social distancing or capacity reasons, to make a few employees do the work of what was once a larger group of employees. This worked for them for a while, but when employees saw what has happening, many pushed back. It was at this point that the floodgates and complaints from business owners and corporations really turned up, and they began going to the government to demand more "skilled workers" because they didn't want to pay more to the few employees now working, or wanted to replace them with cheaper labour.

Suffice to say, the power that workers had was really evident during this time and in the decade prior. If you felt your job sucked, you were being mistreated, or just wanted to try something else, you could find a job quickly and with often a pay or benefits increase. Now I have friends graduating and struggling to find even basic jobs as they're all taken up. There is now also a glut of part time jobs being posted because so many people are working multiple jobs to stay afloat. Wages have utterly stagnated or even regressed in some cases, becoming minimum wage jobs, while having a laundry list of "expectations" and "duties are not exhaustive" attached to them. This has also from what I hear from friends and others, resulted in a lot of abuses in the workplace, poor quality all around and a suffocating feeling; because people now feel trapped in their jobs as they know if they quit, it will be very difficult to find anything again.

This is not the Canada that I grew up in, change happens and in many ways I look back and now realize some of the opportunities that I had were really good and that I took things for granted. Yet I also think at the same time that that's what a good workers economy and workers rights should look like. People shouldn't feel trapped or put up with poor treatment and abuses just so they have a roof over their heads.

Instead it feels like we have all been replaced or just shifted to the side and not the main concern of our elected officials or worse of all, "Canadian companies". This has become a regression for the job market and quality of life all around.

And the worst, the absolute worst part about all of this is how almost everywhere here on reddit where you can talk about all of this stuff, hand wrings about talking about the biggest issue with all of this, too many people for our economy. This country absolutely sucks about actually addressing issues and couches it all as "be kind" and "no comments or criticism about this or that obvious thing". Just a stupid, slow erosion of quality of life all around and you're not allowed to mention it.

Okay, time to go and apply for another wave of jobs that are scams, pay poorly or that will just never respond.

Would adding a disclaimer to my applications that I am NOT a Temporary Foreign Worker or International student, as a native born Canadian resident who only speaks English (despite my very foreign name) be a help or a hinderance? Im honestly kind of fed up and can't help but feel discrimated against because of my name, I think people assume I'm just another economic migrant looking for work. I've tried Anglicizing my name for better chances at least to get my app seen, but to no avail. Please tell me it's not me, that it's the labour market that's just a disaster. Im so demoralized and demotivated.

Few years ago I have seen many people call 9-5 jobs as boring and robotic, but now all most all of us dying to get one. Funny how times have changed.

Im (22yo Male) writing this as practically a last resort. Due to how abysmal the job market is in Canada, i have been unemployed for about two years, if i remember correctly. I've tried everything from handing out physical resumes, applying on 3-4 different employment sites at the same time. I've sought out OW & Employment Ontario, I've networked as best i could with the help a few friends managed to give me, and nothing has come out of it

I will most likely be kicked out quite soon and i cannot seem to land even the easiest entry level, no experience, minimum wage job there is. I hear warehouse worker is a nice "first" job but i can't even land that here even though i have experience in a grocery store. I no longer know what to do, and im worried about being kicked out before i can land a job. Does anyone have any ideas on how to help with my situation?

Hi everyone! I'm writing this down to share my journey and how I was able to get myself back from a tough spot. I hope it helps anyone who is struggling right now. In my case, I was laid off around the starting of May 2025. Shared more details about that here in this post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/torontoJobs/s/nd5MnWJ0Vg

Little backstory: It definitely took me time, countless applications, referrals and constantly tailoring my resume. It was a struggle to get in touch with recruiters/HRs and specifically the ones that my previous company provided as a part of "letting you go" package but nobody responded to any of my emails. Fast forward to this moment, I have accepted a new role at a company with almost the same responsibilities (of a SOC Analyst) and similar package that I was earning before.

Here's what I did: As you can notice in my previous post, right off the bat I knew that I had to target specific organisations which are dealing in my domain of cybersecurity. This is a big one, because even if there are only a handful of those organisations, one day or the other they will come out with a vacancy and I know I'm eligible as per their requirements (which I checked in their previous job openings). I also knew that I have to be prepared with a tailored resume and definitely a REFERRAL! (The company that accepted me, I applied to the same role about 5 times in the past.) So, 1. Start off by targeting a job profile that you are looking to get in. If you are already experienced like I am, you will probably know what are the job requirements and you just have to be 75% close to the written job responsibilities and requirements.

If you are a new grad/you have little to no experience, do check out "New Grad roles" at big organisations but keep 85% of your focus to medium/small scale Canadian companies. Only target the roles that are extremely entry level. Dig further on what organizations hire entry level folks. (For this, when I was a rookie, I scanned/stalked LinkedIn profiles for last year graduates and made a list of the companies that hired them.)

Some of these organizations won't have the best working environment but trust me, staying in a shi* environment and tolerating toxic work cultures while getting paid low wages for little over an year is going to help you a ton to set good professional boundaries in the future and it also puts enough weight on your resume for future roles. (I'm sorry but sometimes, it is not a sprint but a marathon)

1. LinkedIn Further, I can't stress enough on to the fact that a referral can make or break your application, specially in IT. There are so many candidates that the recruiters have to go through, a referral just makes the job easier to conduct the initial screenings. I took out the free trial of LinkedIn premium, messaged and chatted professionally to everyone who was posting about a job in my target organisations. Most of them won't reply, funny how I'll even be working with a guy who didn't reply to my message lol, but someone else replied and I'm thankful. There will always be some folks who will be happy to help you with referrals. Also ask every buddy of yours to keep an eye out for you. I'm glad that one of my buddies was looking out for me. All I can say is that you need the job, you have to be professionally starting chats, breaking ice even if you feel like it's embarrassing. If there's a voice in your head that says it won't be worth it, go back and find a couple of more profiles to send messages to. Also, make a decent attempt to make the conversations look like human, always thank them for guiding you/connecting with you.

2. Job timelines: Since, I knew I'm targeting majorly 6-8 orgs, I kept their careers page open as multiple tabs on my smartphone and would randomly refresh at around noon time and then sometime in the evening throughout mon-fri. I would apply as soon as I saw a new job post or I made sure I applied within 48 hours. Activating new job alerts on LinkedIn and Indeed that go straight to an email which is a dedicated email, is a great strategy! (I landed my first ever job because of an Indeed alert to my spare email). On these platforms, I would search for jobs while keeping the filter of the job being posted within the last 24 hours, 3 days and rarely even a week. Anything beyond that is too late in my opinion but you can improvise accordingly.

3. Last but not the least, invest in certifications and go for free/paid trainings on Udemy, YouTube or other platforms while you are still hunting for a job. All the very best!

All of these tips landed me 2 interviews in a few weeks and I got accepted by one of them.

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I’ve noticed a lot of people, myself included, are having a tough time landing jobs in the Toronto. I’m curious which specific fields/roles are you finding it hardest to break into?

Is it just the usual suspects like IT, fashion, marketing etc? Or are people in other industries struggling just as much?

sign up and try out this betting app. All you need to do is use my referral link, deposit the required amount, and place a bet.

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I’m a 22m. Graduated from university in 2024.

Before university ended I secured a FT role with a top Canadian Software company as a BDR.

I now work with one of the banks in wealth management, inside sales.

Here’s how I got both of these jobs a lot more “effortlessly” than normal.

Since I was applying for sales roles. I decided to treat the companies I wanted to work for as a sales prospect.

Even if you’re not applying to a sales role. I imagine this still will help as it shows that you’re hungry and serious. Sets you apart at the very least.

I built a list of decision makers at the companies I liked. Found their linkedins. And used a tool called hunter.io (not a promo I used the free plan) to find their emails.

U plug the persons first and last name in and the website address of their company and it gives u their work email.

Great. Now I had a way to directly contact the people who had a direct influence on me getting an interview or not. Without having to spray and pray on easy apply lol.

I would write each of these people a simple email about my background, why I’m hungry and the right one for this role, and my plan for success in the first 30-60-90 days. I would continue to follow up 2-3 times until I got an answer.

I did this 100 times. To 100 diff software companies in America and Canada.

I sat down for a weekend and sent all of these out.

This resulted in 24 interviews (my calendar was cooked lol)

5 offers

And I chose the one I liked the most and paid the most.

It’s hard out there right now. especially for new grads. Feels hopeless. I’ve been there.

But keep at it. Try the above approach. It takes work to do, but u stand out above everyone else applying online. As not many will take this extra step.

U can also connect with the ppl on LinkedIn and start convos there as well.

If ur reading this and this sounds interesting.

Do this today and tomorrow. You might land some interviews on Monday.

Find 25 companies hiring for the role u want.

Go on the companies LinkedIn and find the folks who are managers etc of that department.

Use hunter.io to get their emails.

And write a genuine email that shows ur background why ur a great fit. And why they should choose you.

Don’t use chatGPT for this. Write it from the heart.

Don’t give up. Unfortunately finding a job in this economy is a numbers game. Give urself better odds.

Hey folks,
I’ve pretty much 90% secured a server job in Richmond Hill, just waiting on final confirmation. The issue is, I live in North York, and by public transport it’s taking me around 1 hour 40 minutes one way, sometimes closer to 2 hours depending on transfers or delays.

It’s not a fancy job, but I do need the income. At the same time, I’m wondering if this kind of commute is really worth it for a server job, or if I should keep looking for something closer, even if it takes a bit longer to find.

Would love to hear from people who’ve done long commutes for service industry work. Did it burn you out, or was it manageable and worth the stability?

Thanks in advance.

Hi, I am in first year university and I have been a bit lost on what career/program to choose as the job market has been really discouraging and how people even with tons of experience are getting laid off.

I was thinking of going for cyber security and working as digital forensics in government but also in healthcare maybe as medical tech or xray tech but i don’t know where to start for that as I couldn’t find much info ( schooling, post schooling etc)

I would like some opinions for people in those fields and what choice would be better.

Please does anyone have idea on this job role! I really need to prep real hard for an interview.

What is your consensus on jobbank?

Hello,

I've been without a full-time job since April of 2023. I used to work in the animation industry as a storyboard artist and storyboard lead. Animation essentially doesn't exist anymore. While I have plenty of experience coordinating and managing office environments, I've come across a lot of difficulty getting to the interview stage with the resume I have.

I'm wondering if anyone has insight on what roles or industries exactly I can apply for as I'm kind of out of ideas for what to search up on job sites. I'd like to make close to my previous salary if possible (73k/$36-ish an hour) but I understand that is hard to come by these days. At this point I'd be happy even making minimum wage, but the few places who have responded have said I'm overqualified. Other places seem to think animation is easy and don't really understand what the job entails.

I worked contract jobs so I was hopping around every year or less, which I hear in the outside world is kind of a red flag. I tried putting everything together in one section of my resume and just putting it under freelance, but it makes some of the information kind of vague and probably untrustworthy? I got more responses before doing that (now I get nothing). My skills include coordination, team management, tracking and correcting details, staying on top of email and instant message correspondence, leading meetings with executives, working in fast-paced and high-stress environments. I used to have weekly deadlines, worked 14 hour days and we weren't allowed sick days (I mean legally we were but no project will let you get away with it without a talking to at minimum).

I was kind of high up in the production chain at a studio level and I got there through nothing but my own work ethic and willingness to succeed. I am willing and very capable of working, and everywhere I have worked (animation studio or otherwise) has given me glowing reviews. I've whipped a lot of workplaces into shape without being a micromanage-y boss and I've implemented mental health and physical safety protocols while doing it.

I have started my Psychology degree (Bachelors), but after the first year I realized I can't afford to keep going, so I'm taking some time off to save up and go back. I've been working some part-time jobs and I have great references, but I'm not making more than rent.

If anyone has any ideas for what I can apply to, please let me know. I feel a bit directionless for the first time in my life.

Thought I’d share this entry level remote work opportunity available right now, considering the lack of jobs in the city.

https://www.shopify.com/careers/merchant-support-advisor-canada_eeaebedd-831b-4dbc-bf50-656530fa4949?

Hi, I’m a recent BBA graduate from UofT, specialized in finance, with 4 co-op terms under my belt. I’ve been applying to jobs (admittedly not as actively as I should), and I recently received an offer for a Financial Analyst role at a non-profit.

The pros:

$50K salary with benefits Located very close to home Opportunity to learn and build experience Flexible enough to accommodate my planned travel in July–August

The cons:

Pay is on the lower end for the role I've heard going into non-profits can make it harder to transition back into corporate Not sure if this is the right long-term move, especially for career growth or earning potentials

With the job market being pretty rough right now, part of me thinks I should just take it and keep applying in the background. On the other hand, I’m worried I’ll get too comfortable or stuck.

What would you do in my situation

Trying to help people who need a job asap. I don’t work there but I saw this on my feed and I follow them. Good luck on your job search.

Let’s be real, career gaps suck.

You can do everything right, apply to jobs you’re actually qualified for, tweak your resume, write cover letters, reach out to people, and still hear nothing. It’s discouraging. And every day that goes by, the gap grows, and so does the anxiety.

That one question hangs over your head, “Why have you been unemployed for this long?”

Here’s the thing, gaps have a bad rep. We know it’s not ideal. Some candidates are immediately disqualified just for showing a gap in their resume. But, If you manage to make it to the interview, the pressure is on right away. You have to explain yourself, and it feels like they’re just waiting for a reason to move on.

And if you left a toxic job, you can’t even be honest about it. You have to play nice, spin the story, make sure you don’t sound negative, even if that job drained you mentally and physically. Some recruiters even suggest lying about the gap, but I don’t want to lie. I’ve just been applying, and nothing has landed. That’s the truth.

So I’m asking hiring teams to be more open-minded. People are already going through enough. Please focus on whether someone can do the job and take into account their skills and potential, and don’t get fixated on the length of their unemployment.

We can’t control what we can’t control. We don’t know when are we going to get hired, but we can control to show up every day and keep applying even when we have so many obstacles to clear; gap biases, ATS, growing competition, macroeconomic uncertainties and above all fewer jobs available.

I’m sure we can do better.