Sebastian Burgos is a member of the Professional Immigrant Networks (PINs) association, Latin Project Management Network (LPMN). At the recent TRIEC PINs Talent Xchange event, he shared his story as an immigrant professional in Canada.  

I remember when I arrived here in 2020 with many expectations about my new life in Canada. I was excited to meet new people from different parts of the world, complement my academic achievements, and grow in my career. I started a course in Project Management while I was waiting for my work permit, which finally arrived in five months. 

Initially, I was very excited to find a job based on my experience and what I could do as a project manager. I started presenting resumes to different companies in the financial sector since that was my area of expertise, but I did not get any interviews. I submitted about 50 resumes to no avail and thought I needed to do something differently. However, I accepted a position as a customer service agent in a call center; my goal was not to be there for more than six months. 

At the same time, I was receiving information from the community centers on how to structure my resume and some tips for a possible interview, although without success. Eventually, I ended up working as a call center agent for more than a year and could not obtain any job interviews in my professional field. At that moment, I was very worried about the situation because I didn’t get any opportunity to return to my professional career. 

In June 2021, I was introduced to the Latin Project Management Network (LPMN), and it’s President Jaime Gonzalez, by a very good friend of mine whom I had worked with in Colombia, and who had arrived in Canada a couple of months after me. At that moment, after a long wait, I finally felt like things were changing in my life. I started a mentoring process directly with him and one of the LPMN members and carried out a series of activities that would lead me to learn and understand information from other experts in the field.  

I was also part of a mentorship program through Hispanotech, another PINs association. There, I had the privilege of having an expert mentor in Project Management, who not only gave me his support and work knowledge, but also shared material structured by experts for the preparation of resumes and project portfolios. 

I also learned about and applied the concept of Networking, an activity that allowed me to interact with people in my field of work in different companies or areas. From there, by applying the different structures I learned, I started getting calls for job interviews. Although they were not successful at first, they allowed me to develop skills to obtain the job that I have today in one of the most important banks in Canada. 

Once, I remember when I was structuring the information for the interviews – I had a lot of information on papers, but it wasn’t properly ordered and it was difficult to get the information in an easy way for the interviews. But one of my mentors informed me about an app and that helped me organise everything. It was magical! 

For new immigrant professionals who are also on the same journey that I was on not too long ago, I would like to share the following tips from my experience: 

• Learn to listen 
• Join a PINs association like LPMN or Hispanotech 
• Use the technology available to improve your job-search process 
• Do not be afraid
• Breathe and believe 

I know there are still things to learn and apply, but the most important thing about this magnificent experience is to believe in yourself and be able to “learn to unlearn to learn again”.