Quote: (02-16-2012 10:02 AM)DjembaDjemba Wrote:
Hi Scotian,
great info.
I'm a Canadian citizen with a Bach in Econ, and a certificate in occupational health and safety (but no experience related to that field). I worked some admin jobs here in the past and now I have a career in sales finance.
Curious to know if I could still learn a trade up there at my age (27) or if it would be easier to find a job based on my past experience (finance/sales/admin)? Will the Health and Safety Cert will come in handy or is it useless? I'm pretty much tapping out of Toronto (tired of these hipsters and the wages are garbage in relation to the living expenses) and I figure the Oil Sands are the place to make a quick legal buck to pay off some debts and learn valuable skills. I've only worked office jobs my whole life however I'm in relatively good shape.
If you want to get into the health and safety field, contact HSE INtegrated Ltd or United Safety for an entry level position, your education and past work experience will come in handy for sure.
Its never too late to learn a new trade, 27 is definitely not too old! The only hard part will be deciding which one, I would recommend getting into one that you could also do elsewhere (electrician, diesel mechanic, plumber,etc). Look into courses at SAIT; NAIT Red Deer College, Keyano college
A good idea would be to take an enty level job with one of the above safety companies, work a few months on site during the busy shut down season, make a few bucks then decide where to go and what to do from there.
Also, dont limit yourself to the oil sands (although thats where most of the work is), also check out NE BC (fort st john, fort nelson), other AB areas (calgary-red deer Edmonton, grande prairie, cold lake, lloydminster, etc) and saskatchewan has lots of work too in regina, estevan, etc (oil and gas, uranium, potash, etc).
As a young Canadian you wont go wrong by moving out west!
Irishman, keep calling companies to see whats out there....unfortunately I'm not in Alberta now (I'm in Colombia til mid April) so I cant help you out but your idea is a good plan, just get a job to hold you over til you find one you want, just make sure you have enough money to sustain yourself for a few weeks (3-5K canadian should be ok)....the farther north you go in Ab, the more work there is!