Break into tech and keep rising.

Almost every entry-level IT posting says "experience required," but hiring managers count far more than paid full-time work. Personal labs and home projects, certifications, school capstone work, volunteer IT support, freelance gigs, and internships all count — the trick is presenting them the way employers read experience: as problems you solved and tools you used, not as coursework.

The other half is targeting. Some roles hire junior talent far more readily than others — service desk and IT support, QA testing, junior cloud and DevOps, and SOC analyst roles are common entry points. Applying to the right 20 roles beats applying to the wrong 200.

When there are zero callbacks, the problem is almost never ability — it's one of four things. Your resume isn't surviving the six-second scan (or the applicant tracking system). Your LinkedIn profile isn't findable by recruiters searching for your skills. You're applying to roles that don't hire at your level. Or you're applying the same generic way to every posting.

The encouraging part is that all four are fixable, and usually quickly. Most people see callbacks start within a few weeks of fixing the resume and targeting.

Yes — a diploma from a Canadian college is a perfectly respectable credential, and plenty of working IT professionals have exactly that. What it doesn't do is get you hired on its own. Employers hire on evidence of ability: projects, certifications, how you interview, and how clearly your resume connects what you know to what they need.

If you have the diploma and no offers, the gap is almost always in how you're presenting and targeting yourself — not in the credential.

The most accessible entry points into IT right now tend to be IT support and service desk, QA testing (both manual and automation), junior cloud and DevOps roles, cybersecurity SOC analyst positions, and junior software development. These roles hire for potential and attitude more than for years of experience.

They also lead somewhere. A service desk or QA role is a realistic two-to-three year runway into cloud, security, or development, which is why it's often the smartest first move rather than holding out for a perfect title.

Yes. A credential isn't required. Plenty of working IT professionals are self-taught, came through a bootcamp, or switched from another field entirely. Employers hire on demonstrated ability, and a diploma is only one way to demonstrate it — projects, certifications and a portfolio all count.

What changes without a credential is the strategy: we lean harder on proof of work, target the roles most open to non-traditional backgrounds, and get your story straight so the gap reads as a strength rather than something to explain away.

It depends which permit you hold. An open work permit — a post-graduation work permit, a working holiday / IEC permit, or a spousal open permit, among others — lets you work for almost any employer in Canada, so you're eligible.

An employer-specific (closed) work permit ties you to the one employer named on it, so you can't freely move to another job without a new permit. That makes a placement guarantee impossible to honour, so it isn't a fit right now. If your open permit is restricted to a particular province or occupation, bring it up on the intro call — it usually still works, it just shapes the plan.

Not sure which you have? It's printed on the permit itself: an employer-specific permit names your employer, an open one doesn't.

It depends entirely on what's blocking you. If you simply haven't started applying yet, you don't need a coach — you need to apply. Coaching is worth it when you are doing the work and it isn't converting: months of applications with no callbacks, interviews that keep ending in rejection, or no clarity on which roles to chase.

What you're really buying is an outside read on what's going wrong and a plan to fix it, from someone who has seen the patterns before. That's also why infinIT Careers backs the program with a 90-day money-back guarantee — so the risk sits with me, not with you.

No credential required. If you're legally authorized to work for any employer in Canada, we agree on your intro call that you're job-ready, you complete the program, and you stay active in your search — attending your sessions, following the plan, and applying to the agreed number of roles each week — and you still don't have a job offer within 90 days, you get your program fee back in full.

The 90 days start when you're ready to enter the job market and begin actively applying, not on the day you sign up. Full terms are provided in writing before you enrol.

Yes. Skilled newcomers often face a specific version of this problem: strong technical experience from another country that Canadian employers don't know how to read, plus no local references and unfamiliar hiring norms.

That's very much a presentation and strategy problem, and it's fixable — translating international experience into terms Canadian hiring managers recognize, and targeting employers open to it. The only requirement is that you can work for any employer in Canada: citizen, permanent resident, or an open work permit.

With a focused search and a resume and profile that are working properly, most people start seeing callbacks within a few weeks and land a role within about one to three months. A scattered search with an unoptimized resume can drag on much longer — which is exactly why people end up at 200 applications with nothing to show.

Speed comes from focus, not volume: the right roles, a resume that passes the scan, and interview preparation that holds up.