Why Startups Should Choose Canada Over Silicon Valley

Re:Why Startups Should Choose Canada Over Silicon Valley by stormbrew on Monday April 08, 2013 @07:12PM (#5515361)

If by diploma you mean a 2 year (which is usually what it means in Canada), it won't be enough on its own.

You can actually get an exemption if you can demonstrate equivalent knowledge and a career progression towards it. What that usually means is having a professor of your field vouch for your knowledge and being able to prove work history for 3 or 4 years of each of the four years of university you didn't take. A two year diploma may cut that amount in half, but I wouldn't necessarily count on it.

If your work history is hard to prove you may want to try other types of visas. TN-1s aren't so difficult, but re-entry can apparently be a pain. You can also get an equivalent to an H-1B by working for a Canadian subsidiary (of, say, MS or Google) for about a year and then getting a transfer to the American head office. I believe these are much easier to get.

And then there's the traditional ways, like being sponsored by family etc. Unfortunately, no matter what, a degree will make it much much easier.

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Re:Why Startups Should Choose Canada Over Silicon Valley by derefr on Monday April 08, 2013 @07:27PM (#5515420)

> If by diploma you mean a 2 year (which is usually what it means in Canada), it won't be enough on its own.

I really did mean a four-year; I just said "diploma" because "degree" implies education was involved. The diploma is the piece of paper. :)

> prove work history for 3 or 4 years

Does that mean employment history? I don't have much of that. Completed contracts, certainly, but I've not been "on payroll" anywhere for more than six months at a time.

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Re:Why Startups Should Choose Canada Over Silicon Valley by stormbrew on Monday April 08, 2013 @07:50PM (#5515508)

Well, in Canada it's very unusual to call a bachelors a diploma. The piece of paper is a degree. Diplomas are for two year colleges and high schools.

I think the work history requirements might have relaxed in recent years a bit, but not by much. 10 years seems to be the point where most American employers start to seem optimistic about being able to get you an H-1B without a degree. But if it's not employment experience you'll have to work twice as hard to document it, and that can be very difficult. Most of my work history, for example, is tied up in companies that no longer exist or as contracts, as with you.

http://careers.microsoft.com/careers/en/ca/home.aspx https://jobs.ea.com/locations/canada/ http://www.google.ca/about/jobs/locations/waterloo/

I also think there was an article here recently about Facebook setting up a Vancouver office just to bring graduates through the subsidiary employment process. It's a one year thing specifically for that purpose.

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