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In 2013, I took the best gamble of my life that I\u2019ve had so far: I decided to move and stay in Canada. In the 3 years I\u2019d been living and working here, I\u2019ve grown so much as a person and as a professional, and I learnt and expanded my worldview in that amount of time. Being a young professional in Digital Marketing in Toronto has given me boundless opportunities.<\/p>\n
My name is Gabrielle (Gabby) Garcia, and I graduated from De La Salle University in 2013 with a bachelor in Political Science and every intention of going to law school in Manila, as this is what people expected of me. Today, I\u2019m a business developer for a top digital marketing agency in Toronto with every intention of starting my own company someday, and this is what I expect of myself.<\/p>\n
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Before I begin my story, I have to say something. I am a firm believer of owning up to your privilege(s) and being as transparent as possible about them, because not all struggles are made equally. I had three things going for me: a.) I am Canadian-born (meaning I never had to deal with Citizenship and Immigration Canada), b.) I had parents who were willing to invest in my marketability by paying for more education in Canada, and c.) as two amazing entrepreneurs, my parents also exposed me to business norms at an early age.<\/p>\n
In the time I\u2019ve been a professional in Canada, I\u2019ve seen Filipinos who emigrated here struggle professionally. They tell me about how they have difficulties finding work in the industries they had trained for and worked in back in the Philippines. From my perspective, I feel like a large component of their inability to penetrate their chosen field is because of their approach to job seeking and work.<\/p>\n
Pinoys tend to talk about how being \u201chard working,\u201d and how \u201cfamily oriented\u201d and \u201cagreeable\u201d they are, and this should be their ticket into the professional world overseas. But this kind of thinking is flawed for two reasons; it\u2019s both from the perspective of the person claiming that about themself \u00a0and essentially, does not add any real value to your prospective employer in terms of a skills-role fit.<\/p>\n
During my time in Corporate Canada, I\u2019ve learned some valuable lessons on what it takes to succeed as a professional abroad:<\/p>\n